Paul Shread

Stocks battled back from steep declines Tuesday on earnings warnings from Merrill Lynch and Applied Micro Circuits. The gains were attributed to optimism – or short covering – ahead of the Federal Reserve’s decision on interest rates due out tomorrow afternoon. The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ finished down fractionally at 230, and the Nasdaq added 13 to […]

The Federal Reserve begins a two-day meeting today to set short-term interest rates, and traders are divided on whether the Fed will cut rates by 25 or 50 basis points when it adjourns tomorrow at 2:15 p.m. Fed officials have clearly begun to worry about the economy and its lack of response to aggressive rate […]

There’s a headline you haven’t seen in a while. Yahoo and DoubleClick surged Monday on an analyst’s comment that the online ad market may be bottoming. The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ rose 7 to 230, and the Nasdaq added 16 to 2050. The S&P 500 slipped 6 to 1218, and the Dow dropped 100 to 10,504. Volume […]

A new phrase entered the lexicon of tech investors on Friday: “unsustainably low.” Wit SoundView used that phrase to say that the optical equipment business is so bad it has to get better. Wit said that overcapacity combined with an economic downturn has precipitated “an unsustainably low level of equipment investment. That should trigger a […]

Stocks fell in lighter trade on Friday, as investors worried about next week’s Federal Reserve meeting and Persian Gulf terrorist threats. The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ slipped 5 to 222, and the Nasdaq lost 23 to 2034. The S&P 500 fell 11 to 1225, and the Dow dropped 110 to 10,604. Volume declined to 1.19 billion shares […]

On the surface, last night’s Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International Book-to-Bill ratio for May might appear as a positive, edging up slightly to 0.46 from April’s 0.42 reading. That means that $46 in new orders were received for every $100 of product shipped last month. That appears to be good news – except that the […]

A better than expected weekly jobless claims report and Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey gave traders hope that Fed rate cuts may soon begin to boost the economy. But earnings warnings after the close served as a reminder that risks remain. The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ gained 4 to 227, and the Nasdaq added 27 to 2058. The […]

Qwest Communications yesterday took issue with the characterization of unused fiber capacity as a “glut,” because, of all things, companies won’t spend the money to light that fiber unless it is economical to do so. It costs one to two times as much to light the fiber and make it available for service than it […]

Stocks rallied on Wednesday for no other reason than it was time to stop going down. The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ surged 13 to 223, and the Nasdaq added 38 to 2031. The S&P 500 climbed 10 to 1223, and the Dow rose 50 to 10,647. Volume rose to 1.3 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.1 […]

The crisis in the telecom sector is drawing comparisons to everything from the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s to the post-Civil War railroad boom. More than $90 billion in fiber has been laid in the last four years, and Merrill Lynch estimates that only 2.6% of it is actually in use. With broadband […]

Oracle’s moderately positive earnings outlook wasn’t much help for the rest of the market, which started Tuesday strong but ended the day weak. The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ finished fractionally higher at 210, and the Nasdaq added 4 to 1992, 65 points below its high and the index’s second straight close below 2000. The S&P 500 climbed […]

Under the circumstances, Oracle’s earnings report and conference call last night were pretty darn bullish. The company beat estimates by a penny with earnings of 15 cents a share, down from 82 cents a year ago (a quarter that included a large investment gain that unnerved investors at the time). Revenues came in about $90 […]