Paul Shread

Shares of Palm gained 6% in late trading Thursday after the company beat Wall Street estimates and raised guidance. Riding strong Treo smartphone sales, Palm said it earned 19 cents a share in its quarter ended March 3, three cents ahead of estimates. Sales rose 36% to $388.5 million, above $374.7 million forecasts. Palm also […]

A solid comeback for the bulls today. Blue chips remain strong, while the tech sector has become the laggard here. The Nasdaq (first chart below) remains stuck below 2333 resistance, while the Nasdaq 100 (second chart) looks even worse. The Nasdaq has solid support in the 2280-2290 range. The S&P (third chart) faces resistance at […]

News that Microsoft’s Vista operating system won’t be available in time for the all-important holiday shopping season sent an early shudder through the tech sector on Wednesday, but stocks managed to recover to end the day with solid gains. Microsoft lost 2% on the news that its next-generation operating system won’t be available in time […]

“Outside days” on all the major indexes today, a potential reversal sign. The Nasdaq (first chart below) engulfed the previous four trading days today; we’ll see if sellers have any follow-through on that set-up. The index has lots of support at 2280-2290, and resistance is way up at 2333 after today’s straight-line decline. The S&P […]

Stocks ended lower Tuesday in a day of dramatic swings. The Nasdaq started the day out modestly lower, rallied to briefly touch a new multi-year high, and then sold off to close at its lows in a nearly 2% price swing. The Dow and S&P suffered similar fates after challenging their May 2001 highs. The […]

Oracle beat earnings estimates after the close on Monday, but the company’s sales came in a little lighter than expected. Oracle’s earnings of 19 cents a share were up 3 cents from the year-ago quarter and a penny better than expected, but the company’s sales of $3.47 billion were below $3.53 billion forecasts. Database sales […]

CommVault Systems, long considered a candidate for an initial public offering, made it official late Friday when it filed its S-1 registration statement with the SEC. The unified data protection and management software company expects to raise as much as $150 million in the IPO, with much of the proceeds targeted toward repaying existing shareholders. […]

Oracle tacked on 1% Friday ahead of its quarterly earnings report due out after the close on Monday. Wall Street analysts are looking for Oracle to report earnings of 18 cents a share, up 2 cents from the year-ago quarter. Sales are expected to rise 14% to $3.53 billion. Analysts expect the database business to […]

A tame consumer inflation report boosted blue chip stocks on Thursday, but tech stocks were left behind. The Nasdaq lost half a percent, led by a 3.2% decline in chip stocks . Chip equipment stocks faced the brunt of the selling, after a Kulicke and Soffa conference call raised fears of a slowdown in the […]

The Dow (first chart below) is pushing critical resistance at today’s high of 11,227. If the index can break through, 11,400 may be the next stop. Support is 11,160 and 11,050. The S&P (second chart) cleared that same resistance level today. 1316 is the next big test, the May 2001 high, and 1300, 1295 and […]

Advanced Digital Information Corporation (ADIC) will acquire Australia’s Rocksoft Limited for $63 million in a move aimed at helping companies get a handle on exploding data growth. Rocksoft’s data de-duplication software detects and eliminates redundant data, improving the utilization of disk resources and data transport networks. ADIC said it plans to use the technology to […]

The Dow and S&P (first two charts below) are pushing some big resistance levels. The Dow faces some major trendlines around 11,200, while the S&P is sitting right at the same trendlines. Above 1300, 1316 is a big level for the S&P. Support is 11,050 on the Dow and 1280-1288 on the S&P. The indexes’ […]