Paul Shread

Rising oil prices and calls for more disclosure by investment banks sent stocks plunging Wednesday, overshadowing better than expected results from Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO). Stocks spent the morning hovering around breakeven as traders were divided by strong productivity data and another record high in oil prices. But selling accelerated in the afternoon after the […]

The indexes didn’t get very far into our resistance zone before correcting. With any luck, the pullback will be just as shallow. The S&P (first chart below) has support at 1385-1390 and 1370, and we’d like to see the correction hold there. To the upside, 1430-1435 is the level we want to see cleared, and […]

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) atoned for a difficult quarter three months ago with better than expected results and guidance late Tuesday. Cisco’s April quarter sales grew 10.4% to $9.8 billion, ahead of $9.75 billion estimates, and pro forma earnings of 36 cents a share were two cents better than expected. The networking giant forecast 9-10% […]

Yahoo shares plunged Monday on news that Microsoft is abandoning its takeover bid for the company, dragging the rest of the market down with it. The surprise was that Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) shares fell “only” 15% to $24.37 on the news — still leaving $5 of Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) buyout premium in the stock, as […]

Not the prettiest action today, but the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq are all making progress here. Still, with some tough levels coming up in the next 1-3%, we could be in for a pause or pullback soon. The Dow (first chart below) could run to 13,400 before it hits its next resistance level, while the […]

Stocks rallied strongly early Friday after the Labor Department said the U.S. economy shed fewer jobs than feared last month, but a 23% decline in shares of Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) set the tone the rest of the way, dragging the Nasdaq into the red by the close. Sun plunged after the company blamed the […]

EMC is now offering its Mozy online backup service to Mac users. MozyHome for Mac has already been downloaded more than 43,000 times by beta users and is the clearest sign yet that the high-end enterprise storage giant sees consumers as a big growth market. “This is a real clear signal that this is a […]

The Nasdaq paced a strong stock market rally Thursday with a gain of nearly 3%, but Sun Microsystems provided fresh evidence of the headwinds facing technology companies after the close. Sun (NASDAQ: JAVA) shares fell 15% in after-hours trading after the company reported a breakeven quarter and a slight year-over-year sales decline to $3.266 billion; […]

What a difference a few months makes. Last October, stocks sold off after a quarter-point rate cut from the Federal Reserve was taken as evidence that the Fed was out of touch with a brewing credit crisis by focusing too much on inflation. Fast-forward six months to today, when stocks sold off on a quarter-point […]

The Dow and S&P ran into some big round numbers today at 13,000 and 1400, respectively. It will likely take some doing to surmount those numbers and the levels just above them (lows from late last year at 1406 and 13,050-13,100), but the market has monthly inflows to aid in that effort for the next […]

The Nasdaq barely held onto a small gain Tuesday as traders braced for what could turn out to be a pivotal Federal Reserve meeting. The Fed is widely expected to cut interest rates by a quarter point on Wednesday, but some economists caution that the Fed may not cut rates at all — and could […]

After spending much of April focused on corporate earnings, investors this week will turn their focus back to the economy, with a number of major economic releases and a Federal Reserve meeting on tap. The Fed will meet Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss interest rate policy, and analysts believe the Fed’s rate-cutting spree may be […]