The good news is that Gartner has revised its outlook upward. Companies and governments will spend $3.6 trillion on IT this year, which is more than the prior $3.4 trillion forecast, amounting to growth of 5.1 percent. Sounds great, right?

Yes, but it’s complicated, especially from the U.S. point of view. The weak dollar makes the figures look a little better than they are. In 2010, Gartner says, IT spending grew 2.2 percent, but more than half of that–1.6 percent–can be attributed to the devaluation of the dollar against other currencies. Companies and governments spending other currencies can get more dollars for their money, and so this tends to inflate the appearance of growth, Gartner’s Richard Gordon told me.

A weak dollar is generally good news for U.S. companies that do a lot of global business. U.S. products and services look more attractive to non-U.S. buyers. But in cases like this, U.S. companies end up paying more for items that get imported and for raw materials.

That’s not to say there isn’t actual growth. Gartner says spending is picking up fastest on telecom equipment, with computing hardware and enterprise software following close behind.

Spending on discretionary items like IT services and consulting is coming back the slowest. When the economic crisis hit in late 2008 and early 2009 these were the first items on the chopping block, and spending on them is only now beginning to make a comeback.

The bearish view is that the stocks, while certainly badly beaten up in recent months, still must endure a period of tighter credit, collapsing prices, too much supply, a stronger dollar and strapped governments pulling back on subsidy programs. The bears argue that solar valuations are low in part because the market is adjusting to low-margin commodity pricing; P/E multiples on forward numbers are low in no small measure because there is no confidence that the estimates for next year and beyond can be met.

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Aggarwal says trend reversal in FX “will put $22 million” of “negative pressure on Google’s gross margin” on a sequential basis, and will provide only a $132 million boost on a year-over-year basis, versus $248 million in Q2 and $202 million in Q1.

Aggarwal, who maintains a Buy rating and $615 price target on the stock, says that the currency shift “is not a thesis changer, but a noteworthy trend reversal to watch for.”

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Trina sales of $204.2 million nearly tripled from the prior-year period, beating the average $202.5 million estimate, while profit of 68 cents was short of an 81-cent estimate, in large part because of a $6.1 million foreign exchange loss owing to the rise in the Chinese Renminbi against the dollar.

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