Paul Shread

Stocks and bonds fell sharply Friday on a stronger than expected monthly payrolls report, and earnings warnings weighed on several tech stocks.. The major indexes all lost 1% and long bond yields rose to 5% on news that the economy added more than 200,000 jobs for the second straight month. More importantly, wages also showed […]

A breather before the big jobs report tomorrow. As long as wage growth comes in at 0.3% or less, the market should be fine. The Nasdaq (first chart below) faces resistance at 2370, and support is 2340 and 2328-2333. The index is getting pretty overbought, with -DI, or selling pressure, all but drying up, and […]

Shares of Research In Motion sank in late trading Thursday after the company reported quarterly results that were shy of Wall Street expectations. RIM’s sales rose 39% from the year-ago quarter to $561.2 million, in line with its own lowered forecast of a month ago but $6 million below analysts’ estimates. Earnings of 65 cents […]

The impressive strength continues. The Nasdaq (first chart below) faces resistance at 2370, and critical support is 2328-2333. The Nasdaq 100 (second chart) broke out today, so we’ll take that one out of the bearish column. The Dow (third chart) is back at 11,230-11,250 resistance; if that goes, 11,350-11,426 is next. Support is 11,200, 11,150, […]

Tech stocks gained Wednesday on news that Microsoft Windows can now be used on Intel-based Apple computers. Investors decided the news meant greater PC sales for Apple , sending the company’s shares 10% higher, but they weren’t so sure what it meant for anyone else. Microsoft and Intel gained less than 1% on the news, […]

Symantec and FalconStor released products this week aimed at remote data protection needs. Symantec adapted its backup technology for remote offices with the introduction of Veritas NetBackup 6.0 PureDisk Remote Office Edition. NetBackup PureDisk offers disk-to-disk backup, data reduction, encryption, replication and centralized administration to make remote office backup easier, solving problems such as tape […]

Optimism about Google’s first-quarter results and comments from Federal Reserve officials that inflation appears contained boosted stocks on Tuesday. Google gained nearly 4% to close back above $400 after investors decided that last week’s $2 billion stock offering meant the company was confident of its first-quarter numbers, because the company was willing to dilute earnings […]

Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled a software-enabled SAN boot of Windows Server 2003 using iSCSI technology co-developed with IBM. Microsoft made a number of other storage-related announcements at this week’s Storage Networking World conference, including the availability of Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 through OEMs, plans for its iSCSI target technology acquired from String Bean Software, […]

One sign of how weak today’s rally was was that small caps never participated, ending the day down nearly 1%. The lack of broad-based buying opened the door for sellers. So where do we go from here? If bearish patterns on the Nasdaq and Nasdaq 100 (first two charts below) play out, the market could […]

A strong early rally on the merger of Lucent and Alcatel gave way to profit-taking Monday, with all but blue chip stocks ending the day in the red. The major indexes were up about 1% in morning trading on news of the merger, but spent the afternoon on the defensive. The news was little help […]

Cisco Systems became the last of the major storage switch vendors to offer 4Gbps Fibre Channel today, unveiling the new MDS 9513 Multilayer Director, along with 4Gbps and 10Gbps Fibre Channel Switching Modules for both new and existing MDS 9000 products. With the new modules, the MDS 9513 can scale up to 528 Fibre Channel […]

Another solid showing for the Nasdaq (first chart below) today, holding 2328-2333 support with aplomb. If that goes, 2320 becomes important support. The index put in an inside day, and it does seem to be climbing in a bearish rising wedge, so the bullish case is not a slam dunk here, but Monday will bring […]