Paul Shread

Oracle bucked a sea of red on Friday, rising 1.1% on its first gain in sales of new software licenses in more than two years. Oracle also beat earnings and revenue estimates with year-over-year earnings growth of 31%, fueled in part by cost-cutting, and revenue growth of 2.1%, and the company guided first-quarter earnings and […]

Adaptec has acquired a German data protection firm from Intel. ICP vortex Computersysteme GmbH, a provider of data protection products for European customers, had been an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel since March 2001. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal is part of Intel’s continuing effort to focus more on its core silicon […]

Today produced some uninspiring candlesticks on a retest of last week’s high-volume highs. However, we’d like to have a share of Berkshire Hathaway for every ugly candlestick that the market has been able to overcome in this rally. The only thing that makes these different is that they come on a retest of near-record volume […]

Price continued higher today, as traders continue to buy every dip, but the internals remain uninspiring, with a dearth of 80% upside volume days the last week and a half. That selective buying makes the market vulnerable to a correction, should investors ever become in a mood to sell. The indexes may still be forming […]

In a market that has been going up despite earnings warnings, investors and analysts are hoping that Oracle will really give the market something to cheer about when it reports earnings tomorrow night. Oracle moved up its earnings report by five days to tomorrow night, raising speculation that results may be better than expected. Analysts […]

So far we have a bounce on lower volume with uninspiring internals; can the bulls turn it into more than a short-term bounce? So far the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq have formed bear flags on the intraday charts (see the S&P intraday chart, first chart below). The 8931-9000 range on the Dow (second chart below) […]

Nokia and Texas Instruments on Tuesday confirmed Motorola’s warning of weakness in the wireless sector. Nokia warned before the bell that sales will come in at or below the low end of expectations, and the Finnish cell phone giant reiterated Motorola’s comments that handset pricing pressure has returned. After the bell, TI warned of slowing […]

The University of Liverpool will use a new Dell high-performance computing cluster to power disease mapping and physics research. The large-scale Dell HPCC, powered by Intel Pentium 4 processors, will also be used for international public-interest work conducted on the university’s cross-campus Grid network (ULGRID). The university’s Department of Physics will use the 940-node cluster […]

The indexes reversed down from an extremely overbought condition today; now will we get a correction that lasts more than a day or two? We still prefer a test of the critical support levels of 1540-1550 on the Nasdaq and 945-948 on the S&P (see first two charts below). The Dow (third chart) is back […]

Motorola fell more than 2% Monday after the cell phone giant warned of slowing sales. Motorola said it now expects second quarter earnings to come in at breakeven, four cents less than analysts were expecting, and revenues of $6.0-6.2 billion will come in under $6.44 billion estimates. The company also lowered full-year guidance, citing lower-than-expected […]

There now is no question that we have a Dow Theory bull market signal, but it couldn’t have come on an uglier day, with distribution on near-record volume. Just based on the action and the volume behind it, this would be a good place to look for a correction, with the market very overbought in […]

Oracle shook up the software industry on Friday when it made a hostile bid for PeopleSoft . PeopleSoft soared 18% on the news – 10% higher than Oracle’s $16 offer price – on speculation that other companies may now make a bid for the enterprise application company. PeopleSoft called the move “atrociously bad behavior,” and […]