Paul Shread

Stocks rose once again on Monday, led higher by technology shares on merger news and optimism ahead of third-quarter earnings reports. Cablevision surged 11% on plans by the Dolan family to take the company private, and a deal between PNC and Mercantile boosted financial shares. NetRatings also gained on a takeover offer. But the biggest […]

The stock market’s winning streak came to an end Friday on a much weaker than expected September jobs report. News that the economy added just 51,000 jobs last month sent stocks sharply lower in early trading, but they fought their way back to end the day with modest losses. Upward revisions to prior monthly jobs […]

Today’s jobs report will likely be debated until the next one a month from now — right before the mid-term elections. A sharp upward revision to previous months took some of the sting out of September’s weak numbers, but it remains another data point suggesting slowdown. Still, investors remain unfazed, viewing today’s dip as another […]

Not much sign of weakness at all despite an extremely extended market, although the chips and financials were a little weak today; they can be leading sectors. The Dow (first chart below) continues to look as extended as its has at anytime this year. The round numbers of 11,900 and 12,000 could be cause for […]

Micron missed earnings and sales estimates after the close on Thursday, delivering a downer for a sector already sagging under concern about rising inventories. Micron’s earnings of 8 cents a share were 6 cents below Wall Street estimates, and sales of $1.37 billion were up 8% but below $1.41 billion forecasts. “Micron effectively executed its […]

Market internals improved dramatically today (even the all-important Transports, first chart below, got in on the act), but we’re not so sure the market won’t have to pay the piper at some point for weeks of rallying with weak internals. In the entire 109-year history of the Dow, it’s hard to find a mid-term year […]

A day after the Dow set a new all-time high, technology stocks joined in the fun, pacing the market’s best gain in two months. Traders shook off more weak economic reports and disappointing sales at Wal-Mart to close sharply higher on optimism that the Federal Reserve can engineer a soft economic landing. Investors will get […]

QLogic moved further into the InfiniBand space late Tuesday with the acquisition of SilverStorm Technologies. The move is a blow for rival InfiniBand chipmaker Mellanox, which filed for an initial public offering late last week and counted SilverStorm as a top four customer, accounting for about 10 percent of sales. QLogic, long a leader with […]

The Dow (first chart below) finally set a new all-time high today, but the index didn’t have a lot of support getting there. Even at its highs for the day, up volume and advancing issues on both the NYSE and Nasdaq barely cleared 50%, and the Russell 2000 and NYSE finished the day in the […]

A steep drop in oil prices gave the Dow the boost it needed to set a new all-time high Tuesday. The Dow cleared both its Jan. 14, 200 close of 11,722 and intraday high of 11,750 before settling at 11,727.34, up 57 points on the day. The S&P 500 remains more than 12% below its […]

A downgrade of Apple weighed on the tech sector Monday. Citigroup lowered its rating on Apple shares to hold from buy, saying the good news is largely priced into the stock at current levels. The firm also said it doesn’t expect a new video iPod in time for the holiday season. Apple shares lost 2.8% […]

Mellanox last week became the latest storage company to file plans for an initial public offering with the SEC, bringing the total number of storage companies filing for an IPO this year to five. Two of the five — CommVault and Riverbed — completed their IPOs two weeks ago, becoming the first storage companies to […]