Paul Shread

Intel delivered some unexpected good news after the close on Thursday. During its mid-quarter update, the chip giant raised revenue estimates above expectations and also said it is making progress on its year-long inventory problem. Intel said it now expects fourth-quarter revenue between $9.3 billion and $9.5 billion, above the company’s previous guidance range of […]

The market continues to surprise to the upside, with barely a correction since the October lows. The Nasdaq (first chart below) is within range of its 2153 recovery high set in January. Support is 2127-2132, 2118-2120, 2112 and 2096-2104. The S&P 500 (second chart) is pushing into the difficult resistance zone of 1190-1200. 1227-1244 could […]

Plunging oil prices and upbeat comments from Novellus and other tech companies sparked a strong rally on Wall Street Wednesday. Novellus said it expects December quarter earnings of 24-26 cents a share, above analysts’ 21-cent estimates, and sales of $325-$330 million, above $321 million forecasts. Shares of the chip equipment maker gained 5.2% on the […]

The overall SAN market was flat in the third quarter, but director-class switches were a bright spot, according to Dell’Oro Group. Sales in the modular storage area network (SAN) switch segment (also known as directors) grew sequentially by 8 percent during the quarter, according to the group’s SAN Quarterly Report. The increase offset declines in […]

The rally continues to look a little wobbly here, with little upside progress. Tomorrow is the first of the month, however, so we could see new money support the market. The Nasdaq (first chart below) ended the day right on its October uptrend line. Support levels are 2090, 2065-2070, 2061 and 2050, and resistance is […]

Shares of Red Hat jumped 8% Tuesday after Prudential gave the company its second upgrade in two weeks. Red Hat shares have recovered 29% in recent weeks after plunging 62% earlier this year on accounting concerns. Prudential upped Red Hat to “overweight” from “neutral,” following an upgrade from First Albany two weeks ago. Prudential analyst […]

Buyers continue to show up on every dip, but the candle bodies have become smaller the last couple of weeks, suggesting some loss of momentum here. The Nasdaq (first chart below) faces resistance at 2112, 2118-2120 and 2153, and support is 2090-2095, 2065-2070, 2061 and 2050. The S&P 500 (second chart) faces difficult resistance at […]

Intel got some rare kind words from an analyst on Monday. Thomas Weisel Partners said it expects Intel to raise its revenue and margin guidance modestly when the company delivers its mid-quarter update on Thursday. The Wall Street firm said its checks and data points suggest healthy demand for computing products. TWP said it expects […]

Emulex has unveiled new embedded storage switches that can scale to support thousands of drives. The new FibreSpy SOC 804 switches can also support a variety of Fibre Channel drive types for creating tiered storage environments. Based on technology acquired from Vixel, the speed-agile 4Gb per second switch-on-a-chip is available in two applications: the SuperScalar […]

DataCore Software has published the first Storage Performance Council SPC-1 results recorded using the iSCSI standard for storage connectivity, and the numbers are impressive. DataCore called the challenging SPC-1 transaction and database-style workloads “the only objective standard for storage performance comparisons.” DataCore said the results, available at storageperformance.org/results/, show that DataCore’s SANmelody Disk Server using […]

So far, Thanksgiving week is living up to its historically bullish bias, as dip buyers came in to support the market again today. The downside is that the bulls weren’t able to take out any major resistance levels to the upside. The Nasdaq (first chart below) got stopped at a downtrend line today. That line […]

Tech Data beat estimates and raised guidance after the close on Tuesday, the fifth consecutive quarter the company has trounced Wall Street estimates. Tech Data’s earnings of 64 cents a share beat analysts’ estimates by 9 cents, and revenues rose 8.6% to $4.77 billion, ahead of $4.73 billion forecasts. The IT products and services company […]