Paul Shread

A tough market lately, with high volatility in both directions, none worse than the last two days, which saw equally strong moves in opposite directions. About the only positive we can point to is that seasonality will turn positive in another week or so. Probably not too late to point out once again that Sept. […]

Shares of Google soared to a new all-time high late Thursday after the company’s third-quarter earnings and sales crushed Wall Street estimates. Google’s pro-forma earnings of $1.51 a share trounced $1.36 estimates, and net revenues (revenues after traffic acquisition costs) doubled from the year-ago quarter to $1.05 billion, well ahead of $943 million estimates. Google […]

An impressive showing by the bulls today, with outside days/bullish engulfing patterns everywhere you look, and fear among options traders remains encouragingly high. Buying pressure wasn’t strong enough to declare a major bottom, but it was a solid start nonetheless. The indexes all ended the day at major resistance levels. The Dow (first chart below) […]

eBay posted better than expected third-quarter results late Wednesday, but investors sent the company’s stock lower after hours on earnings guidance that was slightly below forecasts. eBay also announced that CFO Rajiv Dutta will become president of recently acquired Skype after his successor is named. Dutta will work with Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom and eBay […]

QLogic made a bold move into the intelligent storage switch market late Tuesday with the acquisition of Troika Networks for $36.5 million in cash. But rather than move up market into high-end storage virtualization, QLogic marketing vice president Frank Berry said the company plans to bring storage virtualization to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). “Until […]

About the only good news is that bond yields (first chart below) didn’t spike higher on today’s inflation report. Some hope for equity holders there. The Dow (second chart) was rejected at its August and September lows. Resistance is 10,350-10,361 and 10,420, and support is 10,240, 10,200, 10,185 and 10,156. The Nasdaq (third chart) got […]

Intel and Yahoo posted better than expected results after the close on Tuesday, but both companies also offered fourth-quarter guidance that left room for disappointment. Intel’s third-quarter earnings of 34 cents a share appeared to beat analysts’ estimates by a penny, but a two-cent charge for a legal settlement had some wondering if the company […]

WysDM Software will unveil its latest data protection management (DPM) offerings at next week’s Storage Networking World conference in Orlando, Fla. The startup, which already boasts an OEM deal with EMC, will add to its diagnostic and predictive offerings with WysDM for Backups 3.0 and WysDM for Fileservers 3.0. “Reporting is not enough,” said WysDM […]

Still waiting for treasury buyers to step in and send bond yields (first chart below) lower. 45.50 needs to hold on the 10-year yield, and a break of 44.40 would be a good start toward lower yields. Lower yields and stronger buying pressure in stocks are the only elements missing for a bottom here. The […]

IBM posted quarterly earnings late Monday that were well above Wall Street expectations, but the company’s sales came in shy of forecasts. IBM’s pro forma earnings of $1.26 a share were 13 cents better than expected, but sales of $21.53 billion were below $21.71 billion estimates. Excluded IBM’s divested PC business, sales rose 4% from […]

A nice start from the bulls today, but stocks still need some support in the form of lower bond yields (first chart below). The Nasdaq (second chart) faces its first big test at 2069-2074, and first support is 2050-2055. The S&P (third chart) faces resistance at 1192 and 1199-1201, and first support is 1180-1182. The […]

Earnings season will swing into high gear next week, and IBM will lead the charge. Big Blue will report its third-quarter results after the close on Monday. Analysts are looking for earnings of $1.13 a share, up a dime from a year ago, on sales of $21.71 billion, down 7.3% from a year ago, as […]