Paul Shread

Cisco Systems beat earnings and revenue estimates after the close on Tuesday, capping a volatile day in the stock market. Cisco slipped after hours on flat guidance. The company struck a couple of cautiously optimistic notes: bookings improved somewhat in April, and a few CEOs are becoming less conservative when it comes to spending. But […]

A week after wowing Wall Street with better than expected results, USA Interactive announced plans to expand its online empire into financial services. Lending Tree soared 41% on USAI’s plans to acquire the online lender. USAI fell 2.5% on the news. The broader market pulled back ahead of tomorrow’s Federal Reserve meeting and earnings report […]

Quantum is expanding its disk-based backup offerings to include a compression technology that can double storage capacity and increase performance. The DX30 and the new enterprise-class DX100 offer greater functionality and scalability, and also include a unique embedded OS that emulates a tape library. “We have designed the embedded OS in our DX products to […]

With an aggressive cut in its DSL pricing, Verizon recast the broadband landscape on Friday. With the big drop to $34.95 a month, Verizon made big winners of Aware , Conexant , Netopia , Broadcom and Advanced Fibre , all of which could see increased DSL business, and losers of Comcast , Cox and AOL […]

The Dow (first chart below) took out the critical 8522-8530 resistance level today; it now has to hold as support. Upside is now possible to 8750-8870 resistance. The Transports (second chart) are just under major resistance at 2470. The Dow has lagged the Transports badly, which is a negative, but if it can take out […]

Once again, high opening equity put-call ratio readings emboldened traders to buy the dip. It’s always a warning sign when the equity PC hits an extreme too early in a move. As we’ve been saying for some time, the biggest supporting factor for the market is the puts just below it, and equally restrictive are […]

USA Interactive and its subsidiaries Expedia and Hotels.com soared more than 9% each Thursday after blowing past Wall Street estimates. Some numbers: 71% year-over-year revenue growth at Expedia. 67% year-over-year sales growth at ROOM. And 38% growth at USAI. USAI cautioned that forward growth won’t be as strong, but that was good enough for investors. […]

Another day of dojis, unchanged candlesticks reflecting indecision on the part of traders, and who can blame them? With a ton of resistance and calls overhead, and just as many puts below, the market is truly trapped in a trading range here. The Dow (first chart below) continues to look like yesterday’s false breakout above […]

QLogic surged 5.7% Wednesday on better than expected results, just a week after host bus adapter competitor Emulex plunged 20% on a warning. Even though QLogic remains one of the few tech companies still going strong – with 30% year-over-year revenue growth – CS FirstBoston demonstrated Wall Street’s newfound integrity by rating the stock Underperform […]

The Dow and S&P (first two charts below) were rejected at some major resistance levels. The Dow had a failed push above 8522-8525 resistance, which could indicate exhaustion for this move. The S&P, meanwhile, was rejected at the upper trendline of a potential bearish rising wedge. Resistance remains 8522-8525 on a closing basis, and 926-927 […]

Technology stocks are finding themselves in a position similar to that of blue chip stocks in the early 1990s: the more they cut costs, the more investors cheer. Ericsson was the latest to benefit from this phenomenon, soaring 19% Tuesday after announcing larger than expected cost reduction measures. The Swedish cell phone giant missed loss […]

Cisco will work with IBM to develop enhanced Grid services for Storage Area Networks (SANs) as part of a 35-company commercial Grid computing initiative launched by Big Blue. IBM also expanded its commercial Grid offerings, including solutions for the petroleum, electronics, higher education and agricultural chemicals industries, and announced that RBC Insurance, Royal Dutch Shell […]