Paul Shread

A tough day for the bulls. The good news is we’ll soon have monthly inflows and quarterly window dressing to support the market, but stocks are struggling here. The Dow (first chart below) gave up 12,350 support today; the next support levels are 12,260 and 12,190. To the upside, 12,350-12,367 is now first resistance, with […]

Stocks fell Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made it clear that inflation remains a big concern for the Fed. Bernanke told Congress that core inflation “remains uncomfortably high,” disappointing those who thought last week’s subtle wording change by the Fed was a sign that the Fed’s next move might be to cut interest […]

The Dow (first chart below) remains perilously close to 12,350 support here. On the plus side, in another day or two we’ll have monthly inflows and quarterly window dressing to support the market, so the market is likely doing little more than consolidating its gains here. To the upside, 12,469, 12,511, 12,550 and 12,620 are […]

Accenture had some good news for investors worried about a slowing economy, as the company posted better than expected results late Monday. Accenture’s February quarter sales rose 16% to $4.75 billion, beating $4.69 billion forecasts, and earnings of 47 cents a share were a nickel ahead of estimates. The company also raised current quarter guidance […]

We got the one test of the recent breakouts that we were expecting, and the Dow (first chart below) held up admirably today. The Dow had no overlap with its March 12 high of 12,350, as buyers stepped in at 12,367 today; that can spark additional buying when traders are forced to raise their bids. […]

Stocks recovered from steep losses on Monday, helped by positive analyst comments about a couple of technology bellwethers. Stocks plunged in morning trading after an unexpected drop in new home sales fueled slowdown fears, but technology stocks led the way back on Goldman Sachs upgrades of Dell and eBay . Goldman upgraded Dell to buy […]

Stocks continue to hold up nicely, and an additional point in favor of the bulls is that commercial futures traders made a big move toward the long side on the big Nasdaq and S&P contracts this week. Those moves occurred by Tuesday, just before Wednesday’s big rally; perhaps the CFTC will someday publish those reports […]

Stocks ended their best week of the year on a mixed note Friday, with blue chips gaining on a better than expected existing home sales report that eased slowdown fears. For the week, the major indexes gained more than 3%, their best showing since July 2006. Tech stocks lost ground despite another round of merger […]

Data warehouse appliance firm Netezza is the latest company to ride the storage IPO wave. The Netezza Performance Server integrates database, server and storage platforms and interacts with external systems to acquire and retain raw data, receive query instructions and provide analytical results. The data warehouse acts as a data repository for an enterprise, aggregating […]

Stocks behaved well today after yesterday’s big gains. In the short term, the market seems bounded by the Dow’s 50-day average to the upside and the Nasdaq’s 50-day average to the downside. We could still see a pullback to test the recent breakouts, but the market’s risk remains to the upside, as it has for […]

Weakness in the wireless sector weighed on the Nasdaq Thursday, with Motorola falling on a warning and Palm slumping on speculation that it won’t be acquired by Motorola. Motorola shares lost more than 6% on the news, while Palm shares lost nearly 9% after traders interpreted Motorola’s lack of mention of the company as evidence […]

It came a few days later than we were hoping for, but we got another 90% upside day on the NYSE, additional evidence of a bottom here. Such “90-90” combos — severe selling followed by equally relentless buying — suggest a downside washout followed by buyers panicking that they sold too late. Such a sharp […]