Paul Shread

Hitachi Data Systems unveiled the first fruits of its partnership with Archivas Monday, a content-addressed storage (CAS) system that HDS says offers open standards-based interfaces, scalability and data protection not found in other offerings. First-generation CAS solutions weren’t built with records management in mind and tried to respond by using an API between archive applications […]

Solid earnings news from the chip sector did little to halt the stock market slide on Friday. Texas Instruments lost 3.4% despite raising earnings and sales guidance above Wall Street estimates, as investors fretted about a possible slowdown in cell phone chip sales in the second half of the year. National Semi fared better, gaining […]

The S&P (first chart below) saved the day today. 1230-1235 looks like pretty critical support on the index; 1165 looks like the next strong support level below that. First supports are 1255 and 1245, and resistance is 1261, 1270, 1275, 1281 and 1290. The Nasdaq (second chart) has made no progress since the first leg […]

About the only positive we can find here is that the Nasdaq and S&P aren’t following the Dow to new lows, at least not yet. The Dow (first chart below) made a nice attempt to recover from yesterday’s breakdown before turning back down today. 11,030-11,040 and 11,077-11,100 are resistance, and support is 10,925 and 10,872. […]

For the second time this week, BMC sidestepped a big sell-off in the stock market on optimism ahead of its quarterly results. The company didn’t disappoint. After the close on Wednesday, BMC reported earnings of $76 million, or 35 cents a share, 6 cents better than expected and up nearly 500% from the year-ago quarter. […]

The Dow (first chart below) became the latest index to lose a major support level today, closing below the neckline of a potential head and shoulders top at 11,030-11,040. The blue chips now need to reclaim that level; the size of that pattern suggests a minimum downside target of 10,400-10,700, and the breakdown occurs with […]

Nortel disappointed investors once again Tuesday with earnings and sales that were below Wall Street estimates. Nortel reported a loss of $167 million for the first quarter, or 4 cents a share, on sales of $2.38 billion, down slightly from the year-ago quarter. Analysts were looking for a loss of a penny a share on […]

Stocks plunged Monday as rising oil prices and interest rates raised fears of 1970s-style stagflation. Fresh off Friday’s much weaker than expected jobs report, investors got a double dose of bad news on Monday. Stocks began the day under pressure after oil prices spiked on growing tensions with Iran, then turned sharply lower in the […]

Kasten Chase may have closed its doors, but other storage security vendors are busy rolling out new products. Decru, PGP and RSA Security all unveiled new offerings on Monday. Decru, acquired by NetApp last year, unveiled a new key management platform, the Decru Lifetime Key Management 3.0 Appliance, and also announced partnerships with Symantec, Quantum […]

The most interest development today was the huge rally in the bond market that sent long bond yields (first chart below) below the fed funds rate, something that usually doesn’t happen unless the bond market expects a slowdown. Stocks, meanwhile, had a tougher time getting a handle on today’s news. The Nasdaq (second chart) faltered […]

A much weaker than expected jobs report raised fears of an economic slowdown Friday. Investors were hoping for a tame report so the Federal Reserve could end its two-year rate-hike campaign, but the report they got was much weaker than they were hoping for. The Labor Department reported that the economy added 75,000 jobs in […]

The first quarter of 2006 was a strong one for storage vendors, according to IDC, with the top four vendors all posting double-digit growth. Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues grew 10.3 percent from the year-ago quarter to $4.2 billion, according to IDC’s Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker. The total disk storage systems […]