Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is between a rock and a hard place. Bernanke, who spends another day in front of a congressional panel defending his handling of the Fed during a tough economic period, is stuck with a Hobson’s choice. Lower interest rates to help the economy but risk... (Read More)

I noticed that Market Pulse stock picking guru Bernard Schmitt put Sun Microsystems on his “closely watched” list, ultimately tagging Sun’s stock as a “bearish” one. Why? He says he doesn’t like the company’s fundamentals; doesn’t like the stability of the software server market,... (Read More)

Will the new iPhone chomp into Blackberry’s market share? Some thoughts on the subject are bubbling up on Wall Street, with the sentiment leaning toward Research in Motion, the company that manufacturers the Blackberry, being in good shape for the short term. After all, the iPhone is great if... (Read More)

News on the markets focused on President Bush’s removal of a 30-year-old ban on offshore drilling off the coast of the United States. But that’s only one step – he needs Congress to remove the ban completely and so far that’s showing no sign of happening. But there was some news in the... (Read More)

It's a busy Monday morning for tech companies on Wall Street, with Apple announcing that over one million new G3 iPhones were sold last week (despite a public relations black eye over a downed Apple server that kept the new phones dark for thousands of new customers). Apple's stock is up five... (Read More)

Looking for a “relief rally”? That’s what Wall Street calls a temporary lull in selling that could lead to a more sustainable uptick in broad-based stock prices. Usually, it’s one industry that feeds the bounce-back and Kevin DePew, an analyst and editor at Minyanville.com, which tracks... (Read More)

Technology stocks received something of a boost yesterday, with the NASDAQ rising 21 points to 2,266. Traders were buzzing about Microsoft’s admission that it would re-open talks with Yahoo, but only if less-than-subtle co-conspirator Carl Icahn can manage to unseat the Yahoo board of directors.... (Read More)

Zacks Research is out today with a big thumbs-up for a stock I’ve been watching for a while – NCI, Inc. NCI is one of the most prominent supplier of information technology systems and services to the U.S. Government. It’s been especially adept at sneaking in and snagging contracts from much... (Read More)

Dish Network is looking a bit chipped, if not actually cracked or even broken – and maybe Direct TV is poised to pick up all the pieces and put the second-place satellite TV provider back together again. That’s the picture I’m seeing with Dish, which saw it’s shares drop by $2.20 – or 7%... (Read More)

In the alternative energy movement, the mantra is a simple one: go to where you want to be – not where you are now. Think of hockey great Wayne Gretzky, who once said “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is has been, or where it is now.” So it goes for the solar power... (Read More)

A decent day in tech trading, with both the Morgan Stanley “Big 35” tech benchmark and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up from week-long lows. Maybe it’s the first day of the quarter and people are just glad the last one is over, or maybe the July 4th margaritas are going down early.... (Read More)

Amidst the carnage that is Wall Street this year (the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 20% since last October, classifying the stock market as being in official “bear” territory), there are glimmers of good news, and a good portion of it is coming from the tech sector. The latest... (Read More)

The market recouped some of its gains today, but tight credit and – here we go again – high energy prices are scaring the hell out of investors and keeping them out of the market. My gut tells me we haven’t hit bottom yet, even at a Dow Jones average of 11,390. One trader on CNBC’s Power... (Read More)

With the stock market down 300 points, once again thanks to high oil prices (now over $140 per barrel), technology stocks should be directly in the line of fire. But they’re not – and some big shot investors think the technology sector might even be a good defensive stop-gap until the economy... (Read More)

The big news on Wall Street today is the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep the Fed Funds rate at 2% - a move designed to keep rising inflation at bay. When the Fed cuts rates, the idea is that nation’s money supply will be loosened up, and money becomes easier to get from banks, lenders, and... (Read More)

The stock market is taking another major hit today after consumer confidence numbers came in well below expectations. The Conference Board, which measures the monthly consumer confidence number, reports that June’s number fell to 50.4%, down from 57% in May. Big investors had been anticipating... (Read More)

Is AT&T pricing itself out of a good profit margin with the new iPhone? A growing number of Wall Street onlookers seem to think so. A few weeks back I wrote that AT&T would be charging $200 for the new iPhone 3G – that’s down from up to $500 for the 2007 model that rolled out to wide... (Read More)

Most of the news coming out of the tech industry has been positive of late. Cell phones, computer software, and semiconductors are key sectors that have seemed to absorb the shock of the 2008 economic downturn. As reported here yesterday, tech stocks, by and large, are up this week after good news... (Read More)

Nasdaq is up nine points to 2,463 in Monday afternoon trading, with a slew of encouraging news from the technology sector, especially good news on the cell phone front and news that federal regulators will okay the Sirius/XM Satellite merger. Sirius is up five percent, to $2.68 while XM rose 6.4%,... (Read More)

I'd hate to be Jerry Yang's therapist today. The Yahoo CEO turned down a $33 per share buyout offer from Microsoft several months ago, with some saying the price could have gone as high as $37 per share. But that was then and this is now. The Associated Press is reporting that Yahoo has ended... (Read More)

Browsing through the trading numbers early this morning reveals that the chip sector, which I wrote about on Monday, took a hit with the news that Texas Instruments might come in with lower revenues than expected. TI tightened its revenue outlook Monday, slightly raising its midpoint but also... (Read More)

No doubt you’ve been reading a lot about the shiny new iPhone 3G. The gurus on this site can help you with the gizmos and gadgets way better than I can, so I’ll focus on the business side – and iPhone carrier AT&T has just announced an interesting new strategy. Specifically, AT&T will soon... (Read More)

Everybody's touting Intel as being the trigger for a run-up in chip stocks late last week, although I like the numbers that National Semiconductor is showing. What's beyond debate, however, is that the semiconductor market is on the rebound amid signs that the sector's long decline may finally be... (Read More)

Oh boy, just when we thought we were out of the woods, high oil prices are pulling us back in again. Oil prices skyrocketed by $7 a barrel today to $135 a barrel, gathering even more momentum after Thursday's big bump-up, and that, unfortunately, is the good news. A new report from a key Morgan... (Read More)

RIMM and its ubiquitous Blackberry is back in the financial news this week, after Goldman Sachs raised its target price on the Research in Motion to $163 from $148. Why not? Cell phones, especially multi-functional ones like the Blackberry, are the bumper crop of this year's tech toy marketplace.... (Read More)