Paul Shread

Wall Street’s response to news of the departure of Bill Gates from Microsoft was largely muted on Friday. The company’s stock was little changed on the day, reflecting analysts’ view that the change presents both peril and opportunity. Analysts at the likes of Citigroup and Goldman Sachs said Microsoft is well prepared for an orderly […]

Acopia Networks is doing so well it’s being given money it hasn’t even asked for. The file virtualization startup will announce Monday that it has received an additional $20 million in venture funding, bringing its total haul to $85 million. Acopia CEO Christopher Lynch said the round, which was led by late-stage venture capital firm […]

So much for yesterday’s unimpressive internals. The question now becomes whether today’s 90% upside days on the NYSE and Nasdaq were bullish or bearish — either sellers showing remorse and jumping back in, or too much buying that exhausts demand. Whatever the answer, we sure don’t think today was neutral. The Dow (first chart below) […]

Stocks soared Thursday on soothing comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and the after-hours session was just as busy. Bernanke said the economy remains resilient and longer-term inflation appears manageable, soothing words for investors who have been battered in recent weeks by hawkish comments from Bernanke and other Fed officials. The news gave the […]

A pretty unimpressive start to the rally today, with poor internals signifying very selective buying. The one positive for the bulls to build on was a lot of skepticism among options traders. The next couple of days may be volatile due to quadruple expiry. The Dow (first chart below) has support at 10,750, 10,700, 10,661, […]

A Goldman Sachs upgrade of the chip sector sent stocks surging on Wednesday, ending an eight-day losing streak for the Nasdaq and powering blue chips to their best gains in more than a month. Goldman Sachs analyst James Covello raised Intel to outperform and upped his ratings on a number of other chip companies. While […]

The indexes continue straight down without so much as a bounce, slicing through support levels with ease. So where will it stop? At this point, due to the intensity of the selling, the best plan may be to wait for a day of intense buying, a 90% upside day that suggests that investors are finally […]

Jabil Circuit became the latest victim of investors’ impatience Tuesday, plunging 22% after warning that its quarterly earnings will come in below forecasts. The contract manufacturer, whose customers include some of the biggest names in technology, maintained its previous sales guidance of $2.5-$2.6 billion, but said earnings will come in at 33-37 cents a share, […]

Information classification and management (ICM) startup Kazeon unveiled the fruits of its partnership with Google on Tuesday, an appliance aimed at extending enterprise search into the storage infrastructure. The integration of Kazeon’s Information Server IS1200 with Google OneBox for Enterprise gives users easier access to billions of files scattered across corporate servers, archives and disk-based […]

CA made a move into enterprise records management Tuesday with the acquisition of MDY Group International. MDY’s software and services help organizations centrally manage physical and electronic records distributed across the enterprise, regardless of location or origin. CA plans to use the acquisition to help customers meet company-wide compliance, corporate governance and legal discovery requirements. […]

The major indexes are coming up on some pretty big support levels here, making the inflation reports of the next two days pretty critical. The Dow (first chart below) has very important support at 10,754-10,757. Below that, 10,500 could come into play. To the upside, 10,840 and 10,877 are the first resistance levels, with 10,927 […]

With wholesale and consumer inflation reports on deck for Tuesday and Wednesday, investors wanted little to do with stocks on Monday. Stocks fell sharply once again, with the Nasdaq registering its seventh straight loss in lopsided trade. 77% of Nasdaq stocks lost ground on the day, and 92% of trading volume on the exchange was […]