Paul Shread

With earnings season nearly over, the focus this week will return to the economy, with the Federal Reserve expected to raise interest rates for the eighth time in a year on Tuesday, and April unemployment data slated for Friday. Investors will be looking for the Fed to maintain its promise to raise interest rates gradually, […]

The latest version of the Globus Toolkit, the de facto standard for grid computing, appears to be aimed squarely at growing commercial and enterprise interest in grid technology. Globus Toolkit version 4.0 (GT4) will be formally unveiled next week — not by the Globus Alliance, the scientific and academic group that develops the toolkit and […]

A nice save by the blue chips today. The S&P (first chart below) held its recent lows in the 1936-1940 range today, encouraging buying. That level is now critical support, and 1164 and 1170 are critical resistance, with the 200-day moving average at 1155 a pivot point. The Nasdaq (second chart) may have even more […]

Stocks had another volatile day on Friday, but Microsoft started the day out higher and spent the whole day that way. Late Thursday, Microsoft reported quarterly revenues that missed expectations, but investors overlooked that miss to focus on the company’s strong guidance of 9%-11% sales growth for the next five quarters. Microsoft said it sees […]

Investors worried about an economic slowdown got no help from Microsoft after the close on Thursday. Microsoft announced that revenues for its fiscal third quarter came in below analysts’ expectations, but investors were soothed by in-line guidance looking forward. Microsoft’s earnings of 23 cents a share after charges met estimates, but revenues of $9.62 billion […]

Starting at the top leaves you no place to go but down, but that just might be what intelligent storage pioneer MaXXan Systems hoped to accomplish. MaXXan this week took the wraps off its MXV250 intelligent SAN switch for midrange IT environments, a scaled-down version of the start-up’s high-end MXV500 that sells for about a […]

A strange market since last week’s lows, with extremes in price and sentiment from one day to the next. That’s not promising action and suggests the potential for further downside, but we should note that the S&P registered a DeMark Sequential buy signal yesterday. That’s a very complex pattern, so we’ll just link to a […]

Stocks benefited from a sharp drop in oil prices on Wednesday, but Amazon.com was left behind as investors fretted about slowing growth and falling profits at the online retailing giant. Amazon’s revenues rose 24% to $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter, but earnings fell 30% to 18 cents a share, as the company was hit […]

The S&P (first chart below) got turned back at 1164 resistance again today, a level that the bulls will have to take out to extend this rally. The volatile nature of the rally — big up days followed by big down days — is not a promising pattern and suggests a correction in a downtrend. […]

For the second straight quarter, investors were disappointed with Amazon.com’s results. After the close on Tuesday, Amazon reported first-quarter earnings of 18 cents a share, five cents below analysts’ estimates. Excluding a $56 million tax expense, the company would have met estimates, but investors were disappointed anyway, sending the stock 5% lower after hours. Revenues […]

The S&P (first chart below) is pushing 1164; a big level if the bulls can take it out, as the indexes finally seem to have established a little footing here. Above 1164, 1170-1175 is another toughie, and support is 1155 and 1150. The Nasdaq (second chart) should clear its steepest downtrend line on any move […]

Amazon.com and Microsoft will be the biggest names reporting first-quarter earnings this week. Amazon will be reporting its quarterly results after the close on Tuesday, and investors are hoping for better than last quarter, when the online retailer missed earnings estimates by a wide margin. Analysts are expecting earnings of 23 cents a share from […]