the Trade-Radar + TradingStockAlerts blog

Cyber attacks against Google have recently been in the news.Yahoo and other companies have been attacked, as well.  Microsoft, in turn, has gone to court to attack a network of malicious botnets. With all this activity in the cyber security arena, it is worth investigating which companies are at the forefront of the battle against hackers. With a wave of concern over hacking attempts, there should be some good investment candidates in the network security sector. Background -- When I talk about security I'm talking about intrusion detection and protection. An intrusion-prevention system (IPS) is an inline security device that performs deep-packet inspection to identify and block malicious traffic. IPSs are considered an improvement over intrusion-detection systems (IDS), which are passive devices that simply identify an attack but take no action to block it. IPSs are designed to respond in real time to attacks by dropping data packets deemed malicious. There several ways that...

On Tuesday we saw a BUY signal for Adtran (ADTN) on our Swing Signals list. Back on Tuesday, after checking the chart, it looked to me like the stock was looking quite promising but was coming up against some serious resistance. Now that it's a couple of days later, let's take a look at the chart below and see how things are working out.   You can see how the stock fell from around $26 all the way down to $20. You can also see the major resistance indicated by the green-blue horizontal line. As of the close on Tuesday, Adtran was poised just below this line. As of the close today on Thursday the stock has managed push roughly 2% above this resistance line. MACD has also turned bullish now. It looks like the stock is ready to run. Background -- Adtran is a $1.39 billion networking company whose products support voice, data, video, and Internet communications. They are essentially in competition with companies like Cisco. Adtran sells primarily to large corporate custom...

Much is being made of the of the news that Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has made a bid to acquire 3Com (COMS). This move is being characterized as a challenge to Cisco Systems (CSCO). So how much of a challenge to Cisco is this? A comparison of revenue is revealing. The following table comes from H-P's 10-Q from September 2009 and shows the most recent quarter:     2009   2008   % Decrease       In millions   Net revenue   $ 193   $ 271     (28.8 )% (Loss) earnings from operations   $ (10 ) $ 26     (138.5 )% (Loss) earnings from operations as a % of net revenue     (5.2 )%   9.6 %   The table shows the revenue and earnings from the Corporate Investments s...

Many stocks just peek above their upper Bollinger Band. Then there are other stocks that explode above their upper Bollinger Band. We've got one the latter kind for you today. Netscout Systems (NTCT) exhibited a powerful move on Friday and showed up this weekend on our list of Bollinger Band Breakouts . You can see that breakout clearly on the chart below: A month ago the company announced Q1-2010 earnings and missed analyst expectations by a penny. The company retained some investor goodwill, however, by reaffirming forward guidance and reinstating plans for a stock buyback. Background -- NetScout Systems, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, markets, sells, and supports application and network performance management solutions worldwide. The company's primary product suite monitors, collects, and publishes information on the behavior of individual applications and services, such as voice over Internet protocol, streaming media, electronic trading, supply chain management, int...

This past weekend we ran our Alert HQ process and once again found a slew of inverse ETFs on the Trend Leaders list (hopefully that may change by this coming weekend). One of the few tech stocks on the list is Starent Networks (STAR). Not being familiar with the company I wondered why it's doing so well while so many other companies are sinking. Background -- Starent Networks was founded in August of 2000, with the intent of providing mobile operators with the systems required to deliver a multimedia communications environment to their subscribers. The company supplies high-performance solutions that act as the subscriber-management gateway between radio networks and the IP network, such as the Internet. The solutions are access independent allowing them to serve a wide variety of mobile broadband radio technologies, such as, UMTS/HSPA, CDMA2000, WiFi, WiMAX and Femto networks. Over the past 8 years, the company has deployed its solutions in over 85 mobile operator networks in ...

The server business has lost its luster. Sun (JAVA) is in a tailspin. Dell's profits are flagging. IBM and H-P continue to provide industry leadership but the server segments are probably not the profit leaders in these diversified companies. So why is Cisco moving into servers? Certainly it's not because the margins are great. Cisco has reported gross profit margins of close to 65 percent. Companies selling basic servers have typical gross margins in the vicinity of 25 percent. The competition in servers is stiff. The companies mentioned above are not only competitors of Cisco but IBM and H-P have often been partners with Cisco when specifying the architecture and components of data centers and networks for clients. Cisco would provide the networking gear while the other companies would supply the servers, storage and software. So why is Cisco moving into servers? Because it's the logical next step. Cisco has talked about their concept of "Unified Computing." Acc...

Goldman Sachs just came out with a call indicating they have turned cautious on the communications equipment sector. With this sector comprising one of the buckets of data available in the U.S. Census Durable Goods report (M3 Survey) , I thought I'd take a look at the government data that came out yesterday and see if it was consistent with Goldman's view. In particular, I looked at New Orders and Shipments for the communications equipment category including both defense and non-defense manufacturing. In yesterday's Durable Goods report, it appears that January's New Orders number was revised down slightly to $5.106 billion from the previously released $5.186 billion. This has the effect of making the January to February increase in New Orders 6% rather than 4.3%. Similarly, January's Shipments number was revised downward from $5.376 billion to $5.341 billion. This has the effect of making the January to February increase in Shipments go -0.3% rather than -0.9%. In ...

Information technology is generally a function that is hidden behind corporate walls. This is true even for technology companies. But IT is too important to be ignored. OK, I have worked in IT in various stages of my career so perhaps I am predisposed to blowing the IT horn. Sometimes, the horn rings out loud and clear. Other times, however, it sounds with a whimper. Typcially, it seems like the good news from IT is not widely broadcast but the failures are more well known. Look at Citigroup (C). They announced ambitious plans to reap cost cutting and new efficiencies from major IT simplification and reorganization. So far, IT costs have risen 20% and have stayed at that level. Citi seems to have a ways to go before realizing their IT goals. Then there is Level 3 (LVLT). Here is a company that has assembled, from a series of acquisitions, one of the largest Internet backbone telecommunication systems in the world. Yet they can't turn a profit. In 2007, the company lost $1.1 billio...

I have been a proponent of BigBand Networks ( BBND ) since I wrote a post that paired Cisco Systems ( CSCO ) and BigBand as a combined Pick o' the Month. In that post I described the networking powerhouse and the upstart and proposed that Cisco might someday buy BigBand. Since that time BigBand has reported earnings twice as a public company. Both times have been a disappointment. The stock remains in the TradeRadar model portfolio under the assumption that it is an early investment in a company that will reward patient, long-term investors. In the wake of BigBand's latest earnings report (and price decline), I thought comparing BigBand to Cisco might be an interesting way to develop an understanding of where BigBand stands at this time in its drive to become a company to be reckoned with. Clearly they are very different companies with one being huge and the other being small. So rather than looking at absolute numbers we'll focus on ratios. Examining key ratios as provid...

The markets just jumped on the back of a good earnings report and good guidance from Cisco . John Chambers has described how the company has become more than just a networking company. The vision he has put forth ranges from Internet infrastructure, enterprise networking, consumer products, TV set-top boxes, various kinds of software and more. It has been noted that Cisco has invested in the VMware IPO. It is less well known that Cisco has plans for taking over the datacenter itself. Cisco envisions the eventual replacement of local devices with shared network resources. This is a trend that is underway already with the advent of storage area networks and network attached storage, both essentially comprised of banks of disk drives that can be flexibly deployed as needed. Server virtualization as implemented by VMware and others has become the next major advancement in abstracting datacenter devices into a resource pool configurable by software. Cisco has begun to define the capability...

BigBand Networks, Inc. ( BBND ) develops, markets and sells network-based platforms that enable cable operators and telephone companies to offer video, voice and data services across coaxial, fiber and copper networks. The stock first showed up as a pick in the TradeRadar model portfolio ( read the original post ) back in March 2007 just after the company went public in a well-publicized IPO. There was a good deal of buzz about the company at that time and it was even discussed by Jim Cramer on TV. Still, after an initial run up, BigBand's stock price has lately been rapidly declining and I have been wondering why. There has been no particular bad news since its 8-K earnings report was filed back on May 3 and its 10-Q quarterly report on May 9. Since that time the stock has been in a free fall despite positive news of new contracts, good product reviews, etc. Looking at the chart, it now looks like a classic head-and-shoulders top was formed and confirmed in early June when the pri...