Paul Shread

Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) shares plunged 11% Tuesday to their lowest level since April 1998, but investors remain far more focused on the fate of faltering insurance giant AIG (NYSE: AIG). Dell and Ingram Micro (NYSE: IM), off 2.7%, both warned of weakening demand, suggesting that financial sector troubles are beginning to be felt in the […]

The bears showed today that they have plenty of growl left, sending the Dow and S&P to new closing lows and the stock market to its fifth 90% downside volume day since June. This heavy selling will eventually help the market form a major bottom — but we need a 90% upside day for a […]

Stocks plunged Monday after U.S. government officials let Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) fail rather than stage another financial rescue, and Merrill Lynch (NYSE: ML) agreed to be acquired by Bank of America (NYSE: BAC). The weekend’s historic shakeup left just two major Wall Street firms standing — Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: […]

In a year that has seen three U.S. financial giants falter, a fourth name could be gone come Monday: Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH), which could be taken over by the end of the weekend in a government-engineered takeover. With the extraordinary de-leveraging of the U.S. financial system in its fourteenth month, a takeover of Lehman, […]

Stocks came back from another steep sell-off on Thursday, ending the day with strong gains on reports that Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) could be acquired. At their lows for the day, the Nasdaq and S&P 500 hit their lowest levels since the July bottom, but both turned losses of 1.7% into greater than 1.3% gains […]

Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) led tech stocks higher on a day that saw continued volatility in financial shares. RIM shares gained more than 5% on excitement about the company’s new products. Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) gained only 0.6% despite saying it will hit its financial targets this quarter, but Micron (NYSE: MU) fared much […]

We noted yesterday that the lack of buying conviction was a problem for the stock market, but we didn’t expect the mortgage rescue gains to evaporate this fast. Today marked the third 90% downside volume day in this range sine June 26 — that’s a lot of selling pressure without much of a movement in […]

The relief rally over the government rescue of Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) lasted all of a day, as investors turned their attention Tuesday to figuring out which financial firms might be next to fail. Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH), Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) and AIG (NYSE: AIG) led the way lower […]

Stock indexes soared Monday after the federal government took over troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), but trading was rocky as investors began the process of identifying winners and losers. The Nasdaq was emblematic of the day’s trading. The index opened up nearly 2%, fell to a loss of […]

Last week’s DeMark sequential buy signal is so far working out well, but we’re still lacking a 90% upside volume day that could signal a major bottom. In fact, today’s internals (upside volume and advancing and declining issues) were unusually poor for a big up day. And that lack of conviction on the part of […]

Stocks managed to battle back from steep losses Friday despite growing evidence that the 14-month-old credit market crisis is taking a toll on the real economy. Rising joblessness and home foreclosures and a warning from Nokia (NYSE: NOK) sent stocks into an early tailspin Friday, but they managed to recover by the close. And after […]

Some mixed signals in the market today. We’ll start with the most positive: a DeMark sequential buy signal on the S&P 500. Here’s hoping this one works as well as the one in July that marked the exact bottom in the Dow. But we’ll need some sign that momentum has turned back up to confirm […]