Paul Shread

Shares of Red Hat soared 30% Thursday after the company beat earnings estimates, powering the Nasdaq to strong gains on the day. Red Hat’s profit of $16.7 million, or 9 cents a share, was up almost 50% from the year-ago quarter and two cents a share better than analysts were expecting. Sales rose 42% to […]

New York — If sessions at this week’s Storage Decisions conference are any indication, information lifecycle management (ILM) technology is a long way from fulfilling its promise. In response to an instant poll of attendees conducted by GlassHouse Technologies Senior Vice President for Consulting Richard Scannell, only 8 percent of those responding had complete confidence […]

The indexes remain mired in a downtrend here, with the Nasdaq (first chart below) the weakest index of late, struggling to stay above its late August low. The techs have support at 2112, 2100-2106, 2093 and 2078, and resistance is 2129-2133 and 2140-2143. The Dow (second chart) has support at 10,435, 10,400, 10,365, 10,349-10,351 and […]

Chip stocks lost ground Tuesday after J.P. Morgan downgraded the sector to neutral. J.P. Morgan said the sector could see falling margins and earnings early next year as demand and utilization rates fall and inventories build up. J.P. Morgan analysts singled out Cypress , ON and Fairchild as vulnerable to a downturn. The stocks fell […]

Microsoft will officially launch its first backup and recovery product late Tuesday, a near-continuous data protection (CDP) application. Data Protection Manager (DPM) is loaded onto servers running Windows Server 2003 or Windows Storage Server 2003. The server is then added to the storage environment for greater data protection. DPM can work with just about any […]

Not a good set-up for the bulls — three straight days within the body of a big red candlestick is generally a bearish sign for the short term. The Nasdaq (first chart below) has support at 2100-2108, 2093 and 2078, and resistance is 2129-2133 and 2140. The Dow (second chart) has support at 10,400-10,410, 10,360, […]

Jabil reported quarterly results and guidance late Monday that were in line with expectations. Jabil, whose customers include such big names as Cisco Systems , Dell , HP , Intel , Lucent and Nokia , reported August quarter earnings of 37 cents a share, a penny ahead of analysts’ estimates. Net revenues rose 25% to […]

Iron Mountain is putting its money where its mouth is and encrypting its data tapes with Decru’s DataFort storage security appliance. Iron Mountain recommended data encryption in April after several high-profile incidents of lost backup tapes. At the time, Iron Mountain cited an Enterprise Strategy Group study that found that only 7% of users encrypt […]

StoredIQ, which automates classification and management of enterprise information, has joined the Google Enterprise Professional Program. StoredIQ is one of four startups that compete in the information classification and management (ICM) space, a subset of information life cycle management (ILM), according to Taneja Group analysts. The others are Arkivio, Kazeon Systems and Njini. A fifth […]

Spending three straight days unable to take out the high of a big red candlestick is generally a bearish thing for stocks, and that’s where stocks will be Monday if they can’t take out Wednesday’s highs. That makes 2129 on the Nasdaq, 10,484 on the Dow and 1221.5 on the S&P the levels to beat […]

Shares of Oracle tumbled 8% Friday after the company’s sales weren’t quite up to Wall Street’s expectations. Oracle’s quarterly earnings were in line with estimates, but revenues and software license sales came in below expectations, and the company forecast November quarter sales that were also below analysts’ estimates. Also taking a hit on Friday were […]

The charts may not be pretty, but fear among options traders is at levels last seen in April and October near significant bottoms. Let’s hope history repeats. The Dow (first chart below) found support at its April uptrend line today — a big level for the bulls. Support on the Dow is 10,349-10,351 and 10,332, […]