Paul Shread

Nice breakouts on the major indexes today (see first three charts below), with the S&P finally clearing the 1015 area. Looking at just the S&P chart, we have a breakout of a 53-point trading range at 1015, which gives the index upside potential to 1068. 1015 is now critical support. The Dow has support at […]

Technology stocks soared to a 17-month high Tuesday on upgrades from two influential Goldman Sachs analysts. Software analyst Rick Sherlund upgraded Oracle and PeopleSoft , while hardware analyst Laura Conigliaro made bullish comments on Dell and Seagate and said IBM’s business is improving. The two had turned cautious on their sectors in late 2000. With […]

Applied Micro Circuits moved into the storage networking space last week with the acquisition of host bus adapter firm JNI Corp. . While Emulex and QLogic dominate the HBA space, for AMCC the acquisition is a chance to expand into a faster-growing market than communications chips. “This acquisition significantly extends AMCC’s networking silicon technology expertise […]

IBM will officially say good-bye today to the IBM TotalStorage IP Storage 200i, the first commercially available iSCSI product. The 200i was introduced in mid-2001, almost two years before the IP storage standard was officially adopted. It was, as they say, ahead of its time. “This was an early pass at iSCSI technology, done at […]

Note: There will be no technical analysis on Friday. It will return next week. Another new closing high for the Nasdaq (first chart below). If it can clear 1812-1815, it could be off to the races. Support is 1776 and 1760. The Dow (second chart) finally got back above 9352-9361 resistance, which is now support […]

Novellus supplied more evidence Thursday of a weak recovery in the chip equipment sector. Novellus slipped after hours when it said that revenues will come in on the low end of analysts’ estimates. Still, the company said it expects a “steady increase” in bookings, even though it remains cautious about the pace of the recovery. […]

Lots of put buying again today, a plus for the bullish case. On the other hand, the financials (first two charts below) look genuinely bearish and can’t seem to get up off support. Which side will win? If the banks break support, the odds favor September living up to its reputation as the worst month […]

The Nasdaq hit a new 16-month closing high Wednesday even as one of the better research firms turned cautious on tech. Bernstein reduced its exposure to the tech sector to market weight. Third-quarter estimates are too aggressive, the firm said, and the strengthening dollar is taking away one of they key pillars of the rebound […]

A lot of bullish hammers on the indexes today; could be worth a bounce. The end of the month and the pre-holiday period could be positive, but September, historically the worst month of the year, with only five winning months since 1986, is right around the corner. Given the run-up heading into this September, and […]

At a time of record insider selling, at least one company stands out. Overstock.com soared 8% Tuesday on news of heavy insider buying by CEO Patrick Byrne. Byrne bought more than 300,000 shares of OSTK stock between August 21-25, according to SEC filings. That boosted Byrne’s holdings by 7%, and more importantly, showed confidence in […]

IBM has added an upgrade option for its entry-level TotalStorage FAStT 600 storage server that enables the server to scale up to more than twice its current capacity and increase performance by 66%. The new “turbo” option will allow companies to start out small and scale to mid-range performance and capacity for less than the […]

Today’s very high equity put-call reading is a good sign for the bulls. Other than that, the technical picture is mixed. The BKX (first chart below), the banking index, is holding above the very critical 850 level. The S&P 500 (second chart) remains mired in a long trading range. 987-990 is support, and 1010-1015 is […]