Paul Shread

On the plus side, fear, as measured by put volume, remains unusually high, a supportive factor for the market here. But today’s rally occurred on falling volume, so we’re not so sure that the Nasdaq (first chart below) is ready to break out of its multi-month trading range just yet. Critical support is 2032, and […]

Stocks rose Monday, but the Internet’s biggest names were left behind. Google and Yahoo both finished lower on fears that competition between the two may heat up after Yahoo launched a small business search advertising program, a market dominated by Google. Amazon.com slipped ahead of an investor presentation on Wednesday. And eBay slumped 4.6% on […]

The storage software market capped a strong 2004 with 15% year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter, driven by data protection and compliance demands, according to IDC. The storage software market grew more than $1 billion last year to $7.9 billion, a 16.1% growth rate, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker. “The storage software […]

The Nasdaq (first chart below) bounced just above critical support today, the bottom of the index’s two-month trading range. That lower trendline should be at about 2033 on Monday; below that, the index could be headed a hundred points lower, duplicating its January decline. Resistance is 2070 and 2100. Put volume remains active here, which […]

Better than expected guidance from Intel couldn’t save stocks from a trio of bad economic news on Friday, with interest rates, the trade deficit and oil prices all rising. Intel and the market started the day out higher, but both peaked in the first 30 minutes of trading and spent the rest of the day […]

Intel gave investors a pleasant surprise after the close on Thursday, raising its guidance to the high end of the company’s previous forecast. Intel said it now expects first-quarter revenues of $9.2-$9.4 billion and gross margins of 57%, numbers that were even stronger than analysts were looking for. Analysts had been expecting revenues of $9.15 […]

That didn’t last long. Just days after breaking out to new highs, the Dow and S&P (first two charts below) gave up those breakouts today. 10,850-10,900 and 1215-1218 are resistance, and 10,700 and 1195-1200 are critical support levels. The Nasdaq (third chart) remains in the middle of its two-month trading range. Resistance is 2077 and […]

The Nasdaq (first chart below) remains stuck in the same trading range it’s been in since early January. Resistance is 2078 and 2100, and support is 2067, 2050 and 2040. The rest of the market may look good, but the techs remain stuck. The Dow (second chart) has important support at 10,850-10,868, and resistance is […]

Oracle late Tuesday said it plans to offer $9 a share for Retek in an effort to preempt the retail software company’s acquisition by rival SAP . “Oracle’s applications business in North America is larger than SAP’s,” Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said in a statement. “We intend to defend our number one position.” “The Retek […]

Pricing pressures, vendor competition and cautious buying decisions will limit storage revenue growth to single-digit percentages from 2005 through 2007, according to Gartner Dataquest’s Global RAID Disk Storage Forecast, 2004-2007. Gartner lowered its 2005-2006 external controller-based disk storage forecast from last August after “concerns about a soft second half of 2004 proved to be accurate,” […]

The Nasdaq (first chart below) finally started to outperform today — yet there were more declining issues than advancing ones on the index today. Even when they outperform, the techs manage to give us pause. That said, the index did manage to take out both its downtrend and 50-day average today, so there’s no arguing […]

Shares of Texas Instruments declined 4% after hours Monday after the company lowered its earnings and revenue guidance. TI said it’s now expecting quarterly earnings of 22-24 cents a share on revenues of $2.91-$3.03 billion, at the low end of the company’s previous guidance range. Analysts were looking for earnings of 24 cents a share […]