Wall Street Beat: AT&T, Cisco shine as clouds loom
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Mixed economic news and forecasts of weak IT spending for at least the beginning of next year caused IT investor confidence to waver this week, though upbeat analyst presentations from Cisco and AT&amp;T and online e-commerce figures brought some cheer to the holiday season.Macroeconomic news is making technology investors uneasy. Wednesday morning, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board cut its federal funds rate in an attempt to allay fears that turmoil in the housing market would wreak further havoc in financial markets. But the move (a cut of 25 basis points) was not as great as some market observers hoped for and sent the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index into a decline.Uncertainty in the U.S. is depressing IT spending forecasts. &quot;The economic slowdown we see happening in the U.S. will in fact translate over to slower growth in the U.S. IT spending market,&quot; said Andrew Bartels, principal analyst at Forrester Research, on a Thursday conference call with media and analysts.The good news, Bartels said, is that globally, IT capital spending should remain strong, U.S. spending should pick up again by the fourth quarter of 2008, and a real recession will likely be avoided.ComScore, meanwhile, had good news about online spending. Almost $19 billion was spent online during the holiday season up to midweek, an 18 percent increase compared to the same period in 2006, the market research company said.Companies that appear ready to supply the infrastructure for e-commerce and Web 2.0 multimedia services gave investors something to cheer about this week.AT&amp;T, which is melding the telecom services and infrastructure of the former SB Communications, BellSouth, and the old AT&amp;T, gave a presentation that impressed analysts Tuesday, convincing many that the communications giant is poised to leverage a wide range of assets.In a research note, Christopher King of investment firm Stifel Nicolaus said that AT&amp;T has &quot;the premier set of assets in the telecom industry.&quot; Independent analyst Jeff Kagan noted in an e-mail report that &quot;10 years ago, the company was only into the local phone business and was just getting into long distance and DSL. Today, it is a full featured company offering local and long-distance telephone, wireless, high-speed internet, and even television.&quot;The presentation came a day after AT&amp;T announced that it has expanded its 40G IP/MPLS backbone network to more than 50,000 miles in the U.S.AT&amp;T shares closed at $39.46 Tuesday, up by $1.56, and continued to move up over the next few days.Cisco&#39;s analyst presentation on Tuesday also drew good reviews. The company has a good track record of predicting trends and executing product strategy accordingly. The company announced, for example, that&#160;it will debut next year its Entertainment Operating System (EOS), a platform for multimedia content for online communities. Its unified communications product strategy and expected enhancements to its software offerings should also make its product suite more central to the corporate data center.Lehman Brothers sent out a research note saying that the company is well-positioned to offer products supporting the new generation of Web technologies. Cisco shares rose $0.46 to close at $28.08 Tuesday, and continued to move up during the week.In a shaky economy not all companies and sectors will perform well, and big questions surrounded chip maker AMD at its analyst presentation Thursday. The problematic launch of its Barcelona quad-core chips, which are still experiencing production delays, has shaken confidence that the company can make an effective counterpunch against Intel.Company CEO Hector Ruiz said that the company should break even by the second quarter of 2008, helped by -- among other things -- new graphics chips. But analysts are worried that may be too little, too late, to stop a market share slide. With product sales in doubt, the promise of cost controls was not enough to win over investors. AMD shares declined by $0.13 to close at $8.84 Thursday.
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Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) announced today participation in the following upcoming events with the financial community, for the month of June, all of which will be webcast. Interested parties can view these events on Cisco's Web site at http://www.cisco.com/go/investors.
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U.S. shares look set to open higher on Wednesday with technology shares in focus after better-than-expected results from Cisco  on Tuesday, while investors also eye U.S. labor cost data.
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U.S. stocks to watch: CISCO SYSTEMS INC. (CSCO.O) Cisco, the world's largest maker of gear for directing Internet traffic, on Monday distributed 162 million merit-based common stock options to employees, including 1.5 million to Chief Executive John Chambers. Its shares ended at &#36;19.18 on Nasdaq.
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US stocks ended mixed today as only the tech-heavy Nasdaq managed to make gains in the face of higher crude oil prices and a rash of broker downgrades targeting some high-profile Dow shares.
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Wall Street stocks were expected to open mixed on Friday, with technology stocks gaining ground led by PeopleSoft Inc  but blue chips held back by a profit warning from Alcoa Inc. .
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Plus: Cisco posts higher quarterly profit...RealNetworks reports leap in quarterly earnings...Time Warner earnings perk up. Check back for latest.
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Stocks rose on Wednesday, driving the Dow Jones industrial average to a record high, after a strong profit and outlook from Cisco Systems Inc.  boosted optimism about corporate profits.
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Plus:  EarthLink trims outlook...AT&#38;T posts $7.1 billion loss...Lucent sees first profitable year since 2000...EMC issues sunny report.
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US stocks ended flat on Wednesday, as tech stocks came under pressure from disappointing earnings from technology bellwether Cisco Systems Inc.
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Plus: AT&T profit rises...Samsung SDI swings to loss...Outstanding earnings for Apple...Xerox profits from color printers.
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Upbeat manufacturing data and the prospect of a merger in the tech sector sent stocks surging Friday. Here&#39;s where the indexes stand before the opening today: *Compared to Oct. 9, 2002, the depths of the bear
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Mixed news in the telecommunications segment dominated technology trading last week, with key players reporting less than stellar third-quarter earnings.
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The tech-heavy Nasdaq has been climbing recently, spurred by some of the usual suspects, such as Google. But Oracle results and prospects for chip makers also inspired confidence among IT investors this week.
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NEW YORK - Stocks were mixed in light trading Tuesday as investors, still stunned by oil's recent record highs, largely stayed out of the market. Tech stocks suffered following a brokerage downgrade of Cisco Systems Inc...
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Investors sent stocks sharply higher Friday as new economic data showed strength in manufacturing and construction, and Wall Street greeted the departure of PeopleSoft Inc.'s chief executive by buying up technology shares. The Dow Jones industrials gained 100 points in morning trading.
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U.S. technology stocks rose on  Wednesday as Cisco Systems'profit and outlook reinforced  optimism over earnings, while blue chips ended little changed  as an oil price drop weighed on energy shares.