Paul Shread

Google celebrated its first year as a publicly traded company Thursday by raising even more money. Google filed plans with the SEC Thursday to sell about $4 billion in shares to raise money for general corporate purposes and possible acquisitions. With a cash balance of $3 billion on hand — and growing — analysts speculated […]

The Nasdaq (first chart below) stalled right at the uptrend line that the index gave up yesterday — not the best sign for the bulls. The index faces strong resistance at 2155-2160, and support is 2136, 2128-2129, 2114-2116 and 2106. The S&P (second chart) held its 50-day moving average today, but otherwise didn’t get very […]

Shares of HP soared 13% Tuesday — a huge move for a blue-chip stock — after the Dow component beat earnings estimates and raised guidance. Investors and analysts applauded HP’s turnaround from a dismal quarter a year ago. Steve Milunovich of Merrill Lynch said it appears that new CEO Mark Hurd’s “culture of accountability is […]

EMC has added NAS virtualization to its product arsenal with the acquisition of Rainfinity. EMC already offers SAN virtualization with its new Invista product, and the addition of Rainfinity gives the company a “comprehensive set of technologies” for networked storage virtualization, said Tom Joyce, EMC’s vice president of storage platforms marketing. It also gives EMC […]

The Nasdaq (first chart below) gave up its uptrend line from late April today; not the greatest sign for the bulls. Resistance is now 2144 and 2155-2160, and the next support levels are 2127-2128, 2114-2116 and 2106. The S&P (second chart) is the best hope for the bulls here, with two equal-length legs down off […]

HP gave hope to a battered stock market with much better than expected results after the close on Tuesday. HP’s pro forma quarterly earnings of 36 cents a share were a nickel better than Wall Street analysts were expecting, and revenues rose 10% to $20.76 billion, also ahead of forecasts. HP raised guidance for its […]

EMC has acquired the assets of intelligent storage switch maker Maranti Networks, further thinning the ranks of intelligent storage start-ups. A Maranti spokesperson confirmed last month that the company was seeking a buyer and would not seek additional funding. The acquisition reduces the ranks of intelligent storage switch start-ups to just two — Troika and […]

The Nasdaq (first chart below) held important support for the second straight day today — its uptrend line from late April. That critical trendline will be at 2150-2151 on Tuesday (2160 is first support), and resistance is 2186 and 2200-2220. The S&P (second chart) has support at 1223-1226 and 1220, and resistance is 1240 and […]

Quarterly earnings from HP and inflation data will top the financial headlines this week. HP will release its fiscal third-quarter results after the close on Tuesday. Analysts are looking for a healthy 29% jump in earnings to 31 cents a share, and sales are expected to rise 8.4% to $20.47 billion. Analysts expect the company […]

Reeling from the loss of its biggest customer and sliding tape storage sales, Overland Storage has announced ambitious plans to compete with Network Appliance in tiered storage. Based on its $9 million acquisition last week of data protection software start-up Zetta Systems, Overland will begin shipping a primary storage product in October as part of […]

Symantec this week issued the first joint products since acquiring Veritas in a $10.5 billion deal last month, focusing on e-mail security and archiving and Linux-based storage management. Symantec says its new E-mail Security and Availability solution makes it “the only company addressing the full range of business and IT needs around keeping messaging systems […]

Note: The Technical Analysis column will be on hiatus from Aug. 8-12, and will return Aug. 15. A lot of breakdowns today, but at least volume has fallen the last two days and fear among options traders has spiked. Still, there was some technical damage today, which the indexes will now have to recover. The […]