Paul Shread

Broadcom has introduced what it says are the first complete interconnect solutions for the emerging 4 Gigabit per second (4-Gig) Fibre Channel standard. The three new products, the Broadcom BCM8421, BCM8422, and BCM8426, provide interconnect technology for Fibre Channel hard drive storage systems and retiming/repeating solutions for transmitting data throughout storage area networks (SANs) using […]

You’ve gotta love the rumor mill. Today’s financial entertainment is brought to you by Business Week, which reports that Disney and Comcast , fresh off their own failed merger attempt, are both scooping up shares of InterActiveCorp on the belief that Disney may try to acquire it. The combined company would have a bigger market […]

Could QLogic and Emulex soon face real competition in the host bus adapter (HBA) space? It’s apparently enough of a possibility that two Wall Street firms put out notes on the issue this week. Merrill Lynch said there is speculation that Applied Micro Circuits could win an HBA deal with EMC . Emulex derives 17% […]

So far this is behaving more like a bounce in a downtrend than the start of a fresh move up. The Nasdaq (first chart below) stopped short of the first significant resistance at 2040-2050, and 2063-2068 looks even tougher above that. Support is 2018-2022, 2005-2012, 2000, 1990 and 1978-1980. The S&P (second chart) is still […]

Thursday was a red-letter day for government intervention in free markets. First came reports that the EU is about to find Microsoft guilty of antitrust violations, and Japan is also taking aim at the software giant. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the long history of antitrust law is that by the […]

EMC and Dell plan a new storage offering for the super low-end, according to officials of both companies. Russ Holt, enterprise engineering VP for the Dell product group, told analysts last week that the companies are working on a “sub-entry”-level platform, including “a low-cost HBA solution and a low-cost switch solution.” “We will see a […]

Novellus became the latest good sign for the chip equipment sector after the close on Wednesday. Novellus raised first quarter booking guidance to $330-340 million, above previous guidance of $305-315 million, and the company raised revenue guidance too. Novellus said it’s seeing a steady improvement in business, a welcome sign for a sector that largely […]

A hopeful sign for the Nasdaq (first chart below) in the form of a three-day “morning star” reversal pattern that completed with today’s white candlestick. The downside is the significantly lower volume on today’s rally, a sign more befitting a rally in a downtrend. In the bigger picture, a 60-17 margin in favor of bulls […]

A move up on the open tomorrow would break a sharp downtrend on the Nasdaq (first chart below); the question is, how far can it get from there? We should note that a common pattern in presidential election years is weakness into March followed by a strong rally; so far the first part of that […]

The telecom services landscape is changing dramatically, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Simon Flannery. Flannery Tuesday changed his ratings on a number of stocks in the sector to reflect dramatic changes and deals, like the proposed takeover of AT&T Wireless . Flannery is positive on the Baby Bells and companies like Alltel , BCE , […]

In a pretty good publicity move, Emulex is giving its HBA customers a free 40% performance boost. The firmware upgrade for the company’s large installed base of LightPulse Fibre Channel connectivity solutions improves performance by as much as 40%, according to the Costa Mesa, Calif.-based company. Emulex LightPulse HBAs Emulex says its HBAs and embedded […]

The Dow and S&P are holding up relatively well, but the Nasdaq (first chart below) has fallen and it can’t get up. Can the index do better at the important 2000 support level? The index is certainly oversold enough for a bounce. Support is 2000, 1990 and 1978-1980, and resistance is 2020-2022, 2030 and 2040-2044. […]