Wall Street Beat: Cisco forecast weighs on sector
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A weak forecast from Cisco marked another roller-coaster week for technology companies on the stock market.The Nasdaq, home to many tech companies, suffered a gut-wrenching 3.1 percent drop Tuesday after a U.S. service sector report showed a decline in the nonmanufacturing index from December to January. Though the index recovered somewhat during the rest of the week, the Tuesday drop was yet another demonstration that IT investors are worried that a broad economic slowdown will affect technology. The decline in the nonmanufacturing sector was the first such drop since the beginning of 2003.Cisco&#39;s earnings report&#160;on Wednesday reinforced concerns that the broader economy will have an impact on IT. Cisco forecast revenue for its current fiscal quarter to increase 10 percent, compared to analyst consensus expectations of 15 percent, according to Thomson Financial. On a conference call with analysts, CEO John Chambers said the upcoming quarters will be &quot;extremely challenging.&quot;Confirming fears of market watchers, he also noted that &quot;we are seeing our U.S. and European customers becoming increasingly cautious.&quot;However, sales for the fiscal quarter ending Jan. 26 were up by 16.5 percent to $9.8 billion. The company has been saying for some time that it will sustain double-digit growth through the rest of the decade by incorporating data, voice, video, and mobile capabilities -- its &quot;quadruple play&quot; -- across product lines.Despite the muted forecast, market watchers still have faith in the company. Company shares rose slightly the day after the report, closing at $23.38, up by $0.30.The &quot;quadruple play&quot; pitch still resonates with analysts, and several company watchers noted that Cisco shares have declined along with the wider market over the last few months, giving it a good valuation for long-term investors. Pacific Crest analyst Tim Daubenspeck upgraded the stock to &quot;Outperform&quot; from &quot;Sector Perform.&quot;&quot;Ultimately, we believe that many of the drivers are firmly in place for Cisco to achieve its long-term growth forecast of 12 percent to 17 percent,&quot; he said in a research note.Chambers&#39; cautious forecast, however, could have a bad effect on its suppliers and customers, including electronics manufacturing services and telecom companies. On Thursday, Qwest Communications dropped $0.29 to close at $5.27, Sprint Nextel declined by $0.6 to close at $9.56, and Nortel Networks dropped $0.55 to $10.99.In other telecom-sector news,&#160;Alcatel-Lucent&#160;on Friday said revenue for its fourth quarter increased 18 percent to $7.61 billion. The company, however, suffered a net loss of $3.76 billion, mainly because of a writedown related to the shrinking value of assets from Lucent. Company shares declined by $0.29 to $5.96 in midafternoon trading.Citigroup Global Equity Research said that the Cisco forecast does not bode well for electronics manufacturing suppliers. &quot;Simply put, this is not good news for EMS [electronics manufacturing services] companies,&quot; wrote Citigroup&#39;s Jim Suva in a research note.Such companies include Jabil Circuit, Celestica, and Smart Modular Technologies, he noted.In other technology sectors, Time Warner&#39;s plans to&#160;split up the Internet access and audience businesses of its AOL unit, reiterated by CEO Jeff Bewkes Wednesday, gave a temporary boost to Time Warner shares. Time Warner wants to grow AOL&#39;s ad-supported audience business, including online services and content.The company had said before that it would at some point run the two businesses as separate entities, to better focus on the advertising business. Nevertheless, company shares rose $0.31 Wednesday to close at $15.71.But the company has an uphill battle. In the fourth quarter, AOL&#39;s ad revenue increased 18 percent, less than the 25 percent industry average. And it faces not only Google, but a potentially strengthened Microsoft, if its&#160;bid to buy Yahoo&#160;succeeds.
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Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO.O, the  biggest maker of gear to direct traffic over the Internet, on  Tuesday said it was on track to meet Wall Street's fiscal 2005  revenue growth estimates, but signaled that profit margins were  under pressure.
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Stock futures pointed to a mixed  opening on Thursday ahead of a slew of earnings and with  technology stocks in focus after Cisco Systems'  grim  outlook fuelled recession fears.
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Investors, already concerned about technology spending after Cisco Systemsâ dreary outlook, winced at gloomy sales reports from the nationâs major retailers.
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(InfoWorld) - The first week of September, the unofficial start of the new season, has been hectic for IT investors. Analysts are scrambling to parse through news from networking giants Cisco Systems Inc., Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc., and a board fracas at Hewlett-Packard Co. caused the company to come under the scrutiny of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the California State Attorney General. The big question for Wall Street analysts and institutional investors attending the Cisco Systems Inc. analyst day in New York Wednesday was whether the vendor could sustain its revenue and profit momentum. Executives lead by Chief Executive Officer John Chambers said that by incorporating data, voice, video and mobile capabilities -- its so-called "quadruple play" -- across all its product lines, Cisco can take advantage of converging networks in the service provider, enterprise, commercial and consumer markets. The company reiterated its forecast of 10 percent to 15 percent growth for the next three to five years. But more importantly, in wide-ranging give-and-take with the Wall Street community, company executives appeared very confident about specific details that backed up the forecast. "They were very bullish," noted Mark Sue, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. Sue said that two good signs were the company's confidence that it could keep its tax rate down to current levels (hovering around 25 percent) and Chief Financial Officer Dennis Powell's statement that the company would pay out a dividend at some point. The company did not get an uptick after the meeting, even though some analysts said they thought shares have a lot of potential to move upward. Part of the problem may be that Cisco was caught in the general market depression this week, as a result of reports of slowing housing sales. Cisco (CSCO) closed at US$21.54 Thursday, down $0.15. Meanwhile Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc. shareholders approved the merger of the two networking vendors Thursday. The merger is seen as part of a trend toward consolidation in the networking and telecom markets. There is intense competition in the growth areas of the mature enterprise market -- such as VOIP -- while Chinese manufacturers are putting pressure on the Western networking giants on the low end. IT investors are taking a wait-and-see approach to Alcatel-Lucent. On Thursday, Lucent (LU) shares closed at $2.25, down by $0.02, while Alcatel shares (ALA) closed at $11.77, down by $0.24. On his part, Cisco's Chambers sees his greatest competition coming from Asia, not Paris or New Jersey. A board disagreement at HP, meanwhile, is a sign of the times. An internal investigation by HP to see which members of its board of directors leaked information to the press resulted in several board members leaving earlier this year. One departed board member, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Thomas Perkins, has accused HP of using possibly illegal means to conduct its investigation, sparking newly revealed government inquiries. However it ends, the squabble is seen to signify the end of an era when board members were all good friends of the chief executive. The leaks stemmed back to the time when the board started having critical discussions of ex-CEO Carly Fiorina. Though current CEO Mark Hurd appears to be well on the way to a healthy reorganization of the company, the board infighting could be a distraction. HP (HPQ) shares closed at $35.42 Thursday, down by $0.42.
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Plus: Cisco profit climbs...Time Warner lowers earnings target...Electronic Arts lowers outlook, shares fall...Sony profit up, forecast cautious.
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Sky-high oil prices are likely to pressure Wall Street once again on Thursday, while earnings news from tech giants Ciena (CIEN.N) and Nortel (NT.TO) and Google's (GOOG.O) awaited Nasdaq debut will also steer sentiment.
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European equities fell on Thursday as technology shares lost ground after Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) in the US warned of weak demand.
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Stocks were poised to open lower Thursday as investors, already concerned about technology spending after the Internet networking supplier Cisco Systems' dreary outlook, awaited sales reports from the nation's major retailers.
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Investor's Business Daily - Networking giant Cisco Systems may be in short-term pain. But it's looking past that to long-term gain.
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Cisco Systems Inc. surprised investors on Tuesday with a stronger-than-expected outlook and quarterly profit as demand for network equipment to handle Web traffic showed no signs of weakening, driving its shares up 5 percent.
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Cisco Systems Inc. surprised investors  on Tuesday with a stronger-than-expected outlook and quarterly  profit as demand for network equipment to handle Web traffic  showed no signs of weakening, driving its shares up 5 percent.
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The first week of September, the unofficial start of the new season, has been hectic for IT investors. Analysts are scrambling to parse through news from networking giants Cisco Systems Inc., Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc., and a board fracas at Hewlett-Packard Co. caused the company to come under the scrutiny of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the California State Attorney General.
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(InfoWorld) - The Dow Jones Industrial Average broke a record this week, but that doesn't mean that the technology sector has recovered from its half-decade hangover after the burst of the dot-com bubble. The Nasdaq has made gains in recent weeks and closed the third quarter up about 4 percent, compared with the second quarter, but it is still is about 55 percent down from its peak in March 2000. On Tuesday, the Dow hit 11,727.34, its highest point ever, and continued to climb, closing Thursday at 11,866.69. Strong retail sales, signals from the U.S. Federal Reserve that lending rates will be kept low, and generally lower oil prices (though there have been some spikes recently) have generated a feeling of optimism for business. Though there are signs that some of this optimism has spilled into the tech sector recently, IT vendors have a long way to go before they reach the exalted levels of 2000. While the Dow index measures 30 large companies, including four of the largest IT vendors (Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp., and IBM Corp.) the Nasdaq is a much better bellwether for the tech sector, since it is so heavily weighted with technology companies, large and small. Thursday it closed at 2306.34, up 15.39 points for the day. But at its peak on March 10, 2000, it hit 5048.62. Corporate IT departments are still under great pressure to contain costs, so vendors aiming at the enterprise have an uphill battle. According to a CIO Magazine Tech Poll released this week, executives surveyed during the third quarter forecast IT budget increases of 6.5 percent for the next 12 months. That's down from an average 6.9 percent increase reported in the second-quarter survey. In one worrying sign, only 46 percent of the executives said they had intentions of moving to software-as-a-service (SAAS) computing architectures. SAAS has been seen as a harbinger of better times for the software industry. Other surveys are more optimistic, however. For example, The Equs Group's poll, also released this week, found that 55 percent of executives surveyed plan budget increases of 5 percent to 15 percent for 2007, and that 21 percent of the respondents forecast spending increases between 25 percent and 50 percent. Analysts at brokerages have been raising expectations on the tech sector, reasoning that some IT vendors shares have fallen so low that they are now a bargain. Also, price decreases as a result of vicious competition in the PC sector are expected to trigger a miniboom in hardware shopping at the end of the year. While it may take years for the Nasdaq to attain the level it reached in the boom years, some clarity around the next few quarters should happen in the next few weeks. In the week of October 16, financials reports should give a good indication of how end-of-year sales will shape up, especially in hardware. A variety of industry bellwethers will be reporting: Dell Inc., Intel Corp., Apple Computer Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and IBM Corp. Intel will get a chance to report whether its latest spate of product announcements, including 64-bit processors, has helped it regain market share it lost to AMD. Analysts will get a chance to press Apple about how it will weather competition from Microsoft Corp. in the music player arena, and whether a lack of a new video iPod will be a big blow.
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Investors will get another glimpse into the pace of corporate spending as Cisco Systems Inc. prepares to deliver financial results after the closing bell on Tuesday. -AP
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Stock futures rose on Wednesday led by a rise in Nasdaq futures after tech bellwether Cisco Systems Inc.  posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit and outlook, reassuring investors about the strength of corporate profits.
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NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO  - Cisco Systems Inc  gave a disappointing outlook on Wednesday and warned of a rapid slowdown in U.S. and European orders, driving its shares down 7.5 percent and only adding to broader fears of a U.S. recession.