Paul Shread

Perhaps no sector has been hit harder this year than chip stocks, off more than 20% from their January peak, so Taiwan Semi’s announcement Monday night that it is increasing capital spending came as welcome news to the sector. Taiwan Semi, one of the world’s biggest chip makers, said its capital spending could exceed its […]

Once more, a bounce has begun with poor internals, with the Nasdaq and NYSE barely recording 60% upside volume today. Will this rally fail as fast as the previous ones that began this poorly? We’re not so sure. For one, put buying was pretty pronounced for an up day, so that shows at least a […]

Fierce competition in the online travel space may be hurting margins. At least that’s what analysts concluded after examining Internet conglomerate InterActiveCorp’s results on Monday. IACI beat estimates by two cents a share with 18-cent adjusted earnings, and revenues of $1.47 billion also came in ahead of analysts’ estimates. But the stock declined 4% after […]

The bullish case is hanging by a thread here, if not already broken. The Nasdaq (first chart below) closed below its 200-day moving average for the first time since March 2003. About the only plus was that the breakdown occurred on declining volume. We got a big jump in the equity put-call ratio at the […]

Sandial Systems has unveiled a new storage management platform that the company claims “ushers in a new era of Intelligent Network Services.” Hyperbole aside, at least one analyst is impressed. “While some vendors are focused on bringing storage services like replication and virtualization into the switch, Sandial has developed a system that delivers true network […]

Investors can add a new term to their lexicon: getting Googled. In the 8 1/2 trading hours since Google announced plans to go public, the Nasdaq has fallen 53 points, or 2.7%, closing below its 200-day moving average on Friday for the first time since March 2003. The sell-off appears to have much to do […]

If this move down is going to be just a correction, this would be the place for the market to turn, after the targets we gave yesterday were hit. Much more downside and we have more than a simple correction in an uptrend. The Nasdaq (first chart below) has support at 1953 and 1946, and […]

Google filed for its long-awaited IPO Thursday, and the company’s finances lived up to expectations: triple-digit earnings and revenue growth, high profitability, boatloads of cash, and little debt. So why bother going public? According to the company’s SEC filing, since they have to open their books anyway, they might as well go public while they’re […]

As we said, rallies that occur on poor internals tend to fail, and this one was no exception. Now the question is, how low will the market go? If we look for measured moves off the recent highs duplicating the downtrends earlier this month, we come up with targets of 1953 on the Nasdaq (first […]

Storage area networks (SANs) can be complex and unwieldy, and Onaro hopes to do something about it. The company announced its SAN strategy Monday, along with $7.75 million in second-round funding, but product details will have to wait for the company’s official product launch later this quarter. Still, the company’s adept understanding of SAN complexity […]

Enron and WorldCom may have faded from the headlines, but accounting issues remain very much on investors’ minds. Shares of Nortel plunged 28% Wednesday on news that the company fired its CEO and other top officials as part of an ongoing investigation into the company’s accounting problems. Nortel will restate results from 2000 to 2003, […]

The Nasdaq (first chart below) once again failed to clear its downtrend line, which should be at about 2056 tomorrow. If the index can clear that line, 2079 and 2088-2095 are next. Support levels are 2027-2030, 2020, 2010 and 2000. The S&P (second chart) is also struggling at its downtrend line, which will be at […]