Paul Shread

The Nasdaq (first chart below) continues to puzzle us here. The index remains mired in a downtrend, it closed below its open today, and volume and the advance/decline line lagged today. The bigger picture looks good, but the techs have us a little worried here. Resistance is 2078-2080, and support is 2066, 2060, 2050 and […]

Jobs growth is strong and inflation remains tame, and the Dow and S&P responded to those “goldilocks” conditions on Friday by hitting 3 1/2-year highs. The Nasdaq, meanwhile, remains mired in a downtrend more than 5% below its January peak, and IBM and HP were the only Dow stocks besides GM to close lower on […]

The most striking aspect of IDC’s latest quarterly disk storage systems report is the gap between revenue growth and growth in petabytes shipped. Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues grew slightly in the final quarter of 2004, posting 1% growth over the fourth quarter of 2003, to $3.8 billion, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly […]

The Dow and S&P (first two charts below) put in dojis, or small unchanged candlesticks, reflecting indecision ahead of Friday’s February jobs report. Expectations are for a gain of about 225,000 jobs, but the market would probably be happiest if jobs growth continued at the 150,000 a month pace forever — strong enough to keep […]

Shares of Napster jumped 7% Thursday after the company boosted revenue guidance. The company formerly known as Roxio said it now expects quarterly revenues of $15 million, $1 million above analysts’ estimates. Napster did not discuss earnings guidance; analysts are looking for a loss of 63 cents a share in the quarter. Napster’s good news […]

A volatile day today, with the indexes bouncing off both support and resistance levels, as the trading range winds tighter and tighter. The Dow (first chart below) once again failed to clear 10,868 resistance, turning back after inching above that level. Support is 10,800, 10,750, 10,700 and 10,650-10,670. The Nasdaq (second chart) failed to clear […]

Shares of Iron Mountain rocketed 13% Wednesday after the information management company reported quarterly results that exceeded Wall Street expectations. Riding the wave of corporate governance regulations and disaster preparedness, Iron Mountain reported fourth-quarter earnings of 23 cents a share, seven cents above analysts’ estimates. Revenues jumped 17% to $479 million, also beating expectations, and […]

The Dow (first chart below) continues to stall near its yearly high of 10,868. Support is 10,800, 10,750 and 10,700. The Nasdaq (second chart) is winding up in a tight range here, with 2075 to the upside and 2057 to the downside looking like important short-term levels. Above 2075, 2087 and 2100-2112 come into play. […]

Shares of Novellus fell 3% after hours Tuesday after the company issued earnings guidance that wasn’t quite as strong as hoped. Novellus said it expects quarterly revenues of $330-$340 million and earnings of 20-22 cents a share. Analysts were looking for earnings of 21 cents a share on revenues of $325.6 million. While the company’s […]

Consolidation in the software sector continued on Monday, with business software giant SAP snapping up retail software maker Retek for $496 million. Shares of Retek rocketed 40% on the news, and rival JDA Software gained 14% on speculation that it could be next. The Retek acquisition was viewed by analysts as another attempt by SAP […]

Bank of America’s admission on Friday that the company lost data tapes containing federal workers’ customer and account information will likely bring renewed attention to data security issues. The bank confirmed that “a small number of computer data tapes were lost during shipment to a backup data center. The missing tapes contained U.S. federal government […]

Nice bullish “three white soldiers” patterns on the Dow and S&P the last three days (see first two charts below). The Nasdaq (third chart) would need another 13-20 point gain on Monday to join the club. That’s the one thing that troubles us about the market here — the techs continue to lag, barely clearing […]