Paul Shread

It’s been a good week for the online travel industry, with Priceline and Expedia soaring on strong earnings reports. Priceline rocketed 26% Thursday after the company handily beat estimates and reported a 40% jump in travel bookings. In its first full quarter since InterActiveCorp spun off its online travel holdings, Expedia jumped 10% Friday after […]

One heck of a nice breakout on the Nasdaq (first chart below) today — but the index looks a little wobbly ahead of tomorrow’s big jobs report. The index barely closed higher than its open, forming a beauty of a “doji star” here, suggesting indecision, and internals on both exchanges deteriorated today. The index faces […]

Computer Sciences beat earnings estimates after the close on Thursday, but the company’s sales came in a little light of forecasts. CSC’s earnings of 71 cents a share were three cents ahead of analysts’ estimates, but sales of $3.57 billion, while up 5.3% from the year-ago quarter, was below Wall Street estimates of $3.63 billion. […]

The Nasdaq and Dow (first two charts below) are pushing some major downtrend lines here. Can they get over those hurdles without the support of the bond market (third chart)? While bonds haven’t been giving stocks much help the last couple of months, we should note that commercial futures traders are even more bullish on […]

Shares of Symantec fell 19% Wednesday after the company warned that its December quarter results will come in below expectations. Symantec’s September quarter results were ahead of expectations, but the company’s guidance for the current quarter — earnings of 25 cents a share on sales of $1.26 billion — was below analysts’ estimates of 27-cent […]

A slow day today, so we’ll focus on one of the most important developments in the market recently. Commercial traders, considered the “smart money” in the futures market, went long on the S&P 500 last week for the first time since 1998-1999. While their timing isn’t perfect, this is nonetheless an encouraging development for stock […]

Dell’s first earnings warning in five years had analysts debating whether the company’s disappointing earnings and sales were a company-specific problem or a sign of broader weakness in IT spending. Most analysts seemed to think that the warning that shaved 8% off Dell’s share price Tuesday was the result of tougher competition and Dell’s new […]

The markets came very close to bullish back-to-back 80% upside volume days today — last seen at the October 2002 low — but the late pullback prevented that from happening, and then Dell warned after the bell. Once again, we return to long-term interest rates (first chart below), which usually lead stocks, and they have […]

Dell had no Halloween treat for investors on Monday, instead issuing a warning that its quarterly sales and earnings will be below Wall Street expectations. Dell is now projecting pro forma earnings of 39 cents a share — a penny below estimates — and sales of $13.9 billion will come in below $14.3 billion forecasts. […]

PMC-Sierra has entered into an agreement with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Silver Lake Partners to acquire the storage semiconductor business of Agilent Technologies for about $425 million in cash. The storage chip business is part of Agilent’s Semiconductor Products Group (SPG), which KKR and Silver Lake Partners are in the process of acquiring. PMC-Sierra said […]

Another rally attempt by stocks today, but without support from interest rates (first chart below), they’re unlikely to begin a sustained advance. The Nasdaq (second chart) faces resistance at 2100 and 2115-2119, and support is once again 2070-2073. The Dow (third chart) faces major resistance at 10,435-10,440 and 10,500, and support is 10,350. The S&P […]

Microsoft joined the stock market in a strong rally on Friday, as investors looked past the company’s lower than expected sales and guidance to focus on new product launches and a $19 billion stock buyback. Analysts called Microsoft’s guidance conservative, and said that upcoming releases such as SQL Server 2005, Xbox 360 and next year’s […]