Paul Shread

Google and AMD were true to recent form with their quarterly results: Google once again surprised to the upside, and AMD to the downside. Google’s earnings of $3.68 a share were 38 cents better than Wall Street analysts expected, and sales after traffic acquisition costs rose more than 60% from the year-ago quarter to $2.53 […]

The Dow (first chart below) has led at the expense of the broader market the last two days, edging higher as other indexes have lagged and internals have eroded. That kind of hesitance and flight to quality leaves the market vulnerable to a pullback. 12,860 is first resistance on the Dow, and support is 12,700-12,720, […]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a new all-time high Wednesday, but the index did it without IBM , which got hit by multiple downgrades on weak U.S. sales and services bookings despite better than expected results. Yahoo also weighed on the tech sector, tumbling 12% after missing estimates. Intel fared better, gaining about […]

Four IT vendors have banded together to demonstrate a new data integrity standard. Emulex, LSI, Oracle and Seagate on Wednesday unveiled the Data Integrity Initiative (DII), a technology collaboration that implements and expands the T10 DIF (Data Integrity Field) standard for complete end-to-end data integrity for enterprise storage systems. The issue is a critical one […]

The all-time highs on the Dow and Wilshire 5000 (first two charts below) seem to be giving investors pause here. 12,796 is the level to beat on the Dow, and support is 12,700-12,720 and 12,650. The S&P (third chart) stalled at 1475 resistance, as expected. 1461, 1454 and 1450 are support. The Nasdaq (fourth chart) […]

Some of the biggest names in technology reported quarterly results late Tuesday, and the results were mixed. IBM was unchanged after beating Wall Street sales estimates, while Intel edged higher on results that weren’t as bad as feared. Yahoo faced tougher going, falling 6% after missing on the top and bottom line. Big Blue’s sales […]

EMC reported first-quarter results Tuesday that beat Wall Street expectations, thanks to strong security and virtualization sales. EMC’s VMware division grew 95 percent in the quarter, while its RSA unit grew 25 percent. The Information Storage and Content Management and Archiving divisions grew 8 percent and 3 percent, respectively. Overall, EMC’s revenues in the quarter […]

Another show of strength by the bulls today, erasing the last of the potential bearish rising wedges that formed last week and sending the S&P (first chart below) to a new post-2002 high — about 60 points from its all-time closing high. The index could hit some resistance at 1475, and 1461, 1453 and 1446 […]

Stocks posted big gains Monday on strong results from Citigroup , a $25 billion buyout of Sallie Mae and a solid retail sales report. With consumer inflation data and a number of high-profile earnings reports coming on Tuesday, investors will have even more to digest tomorrow. For technology investors, earnings season swings into high gear […]

Upbeat comments from a Cisco executive and solid earnings reports from Merck and GE boosted stocks on Friday and helped overcome early selling on a mixed wholesale inflation report. Cisco shares gained nearly 3% after Chief Development Officer Charles Giancarlo was quoted by Bloomberg as saying that sales are at the high end of forecasts. […]

Another short-lived pullback. The biggest risk for the bulls here is that the rally could “wedge out,” making the upper trendlines forming on the major indexes important resistance. The levels to watch are 2486 on the Nasdaq, 12,625 on the Dow and 1452 on the S&P (first three charts below). Those patterns also give us […]

Stocks overcame a number of obstacles Thursday to post solid gains. The market initially traded lower after disappointing retail sales and rising oil prices added to slowdown and inflation fears sparked by Wednesday’s Federal Reserve meeting minutes. But the major indexes hit their lows in the first 30 minutes of trading and spent the rest […]