Paul Shread

Another gap and trap today. At some point, one of these failed rallies is likely to result in a hard turn down; a lot of traders must be losing money chasing these overnight rallies. The one positive here is that the internals are in relatively decent shape, although today’s sell-off in rising volume was a […]

Intel’s better than expected earnings gave chip stocks strong gains on Wednesday, but blue chips fell sharply on earnings concerns. The Nasdaq added 3 to 1394, the S&P 500 lost 10 to 879, and the Dow plunged 144 to 8257. Volume rose to 1.56 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.52 billion on the Nasdaq. […]

Emulex and Intel say they plan to develop the first storage processors that integrate Serial ATA, Serial Attached SCSI and Fibre Channel interfaces within a single architecture. The companies say the result of the joint development will be a broad line of storage processors that will deliver new levels of performance and integration across what […]

Microsoft and Intel capped an up day for the stock market by beating estimates after the close. The Nasdaq added 6 to 1391, the S&P 500 rose 5 to 890, and the Dow climbed 51 to 8402. Volume rose to 1.4 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.28 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 21-11 […]

None of the economic or earnings news lately has been positive, but traders are buying it anyway, which is a plus for the bulls. However, sentiment remains dangerous here, with the VIX (options volatility index, first chart below), at its lower weekly Bollinger Band, which has marked reversals in the index for years. The rally […]

In an effort to maintain the top spot in the storage management software space, EMC is acquiring Astrum Software, a privately held storage resource management firm. The acquisition of Boston-based Astrum Software is the ninth software acquisition by EMC in the last three years and expands the company’s portfolio of SRM software, the fastest-growing segment […]

Stocks surged Monday on better than expected earnings from financial giants Citigroup and Fannie Mae. The Nasdaq surged 26 to 1384, the S&P 500 rose 16 to 885, and the Dow gained 147 to 8351. Volume declined to 1.1 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.16 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 24-8 on the […]

A strong rally on better than expected retail sales and consumer sentiment faded on Friday, as the market ended the day in the red. The Nasdaq lost 6 to 1358, the S&P 500 fell 3 to 868, and the Dow declined 17 to 8203. Volume declined to 1.13 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.22 […]

A low-volume bounce following a decline in rising volume yesterday; not a good start to this rally. Traders will have lots of news to key on tomorrow: GE’s earnings, the PPI, retail sales and Michigan sentiment. Not likely to be a boring day. Sentiment remains odd here. The equity put-call ratio closed at a very […]

A week after Dell began worldwide manufacturing of its Dell/EMC CX200 storage systems, IBM has rolled out a competing model that Big Blue claims is cheaper and offers 40% better performance. At the same time, HP has announced plans to unveil a competitor to EMC’s CLARiiON CX400 at the Storage Networking World conference next week. […]

Yahoo beat estimates after the close on Wednesday, capping a down day for the stock market on an up note. An early rally on triumphant scenes from central Baghdad gave way to selling, as investors turned their focus to corporate earnings and the economy. The Nasdaq dropped 26 to 1356, the S&P 500 fell 12 […]

The indexes all broke tentative uptrends today, and no index did more technical damage than the Nasdaq (first chart below), which sliced through a lot of support. 1347-1356 is now first support, and 1336 is critical. To the upside, 1360, 1368-1375 and 1385-1390 are resistance. The Dow and S&P (second and third charts) also broke […]