the Trade-Radar + TradingStockAlerts blog

Aloha, everyone! After several years of sticking close to home, the whole family fled the freezing Northeast and hit Hawaii for a well-deserved vacation. For those of you who are still shoveling snow, you have my sympathy. When I introduced the new TradingStockAlerts Free Stock Screener , I mentioned that I'd soon be away from the office and that data on the new screener and on Trade-Radar would be going stale while I was out of the office. As it turns out, I have been able to update the data on both sites on the usual schedule thanks to a neat piece of software from a company called LogMeIn . Background -- LogMeIn provides solutions that allow you to remotely manage computers. In my case, I have a laptop in Hawaii and I am able to control the computer in the office that runs all the Trade-Radar analysis programs. I install a piece of software on the office computer which runs as a service. It waits for a request to access the computer and handles security (a password is requ...

Ebix, Inc. (EBIX)  showed up this weekend as a new addition to our Trend Leaders list. It earned this distinction by registering bullish indications via MACD and DMI analysis. Here is the chart: The chart shows that the stock has been in a downtrend since October. Now, however, it's beginning to show some life. It's making a strong recovery from the area around $45 and has broken resistance in the area around $50 as well as making a move above that downward sloping trend line. Background -- According to Yahoo! Finance, Ebix provides software and e-commerce solutions for the insurance industry primarily in North America, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Singapore. It focuses on the sale, customization, development, implementation, and support of insurance carrier system platforms. It also sells and supports broker/agency management systems. A major channel for the company is the EbixExchange, On-Demand Software Exchange that offers products and services that automat...

Last night I published the Thursday Swing Trading Signals and there was an interesting mid-cap tech company on the list. The company is Synopsys (SNPS). Why do I question whether it can rise from the dead? Take a look at this chart: You can see that the stock got slammed in early December and was left for dead. The sell-off was induced by an earnings report where the company announced lower quarterly profit and sales as well as higher expenses. Today, the stock opened with an upside gap and so far is holding its gains. Company Background -- Synopsys, Inc. and its subsidiaries provide electronic design automation (EDA) software and related services for semiconductor design companies in the United States, Europe, Japan, and the Asia Pacific. The software provides design and verification, optimization, simulation and timing analysis capabilities. The company supports both digital and analog chip design and provides professional services. Synopsys, a $3 billion company, is a...

Thursday's TradeRadar Trend Busters had some BUY signals on a number of tech stocks. Among them was Open Text (OTEX). Looking at daily data, the stock has been surging, bouncing off its 200-day moving average and moving above its 50-day moving average. Bursting above a short-term down-trend earned the stock a place on the Trend Busters list. Let's pull back a bit and take a longer term perspective. The following is the weekly chart and a nice steady, up-trend appears to be solidly in place. Background -- Open Text Corporation develops and sells Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions primarily in North America and Europe. Its products enable corporations to manage traditional forms of content, such as images, office documents, graphics, and drawings, as well as to manage electronic content, including Web pages, email, and video. They facilitate document management, collaboration, social media, Web content management, digital asset management, records management, ...

Major market averages fell roughly 2.5% Friday but not everything went down. OPNET Technologies (OPNT) gained 4.7% today in the face of relentless selling in most other stocks. What gives? Background -- OPNET Technologies, Inc. provides software products and related services for managing networks, servers and applications. The company's products are used to troubleshoot performance problems in production applications and perform capacity planning and design optimization of networks and servers. Products are also used to provide centralized, real-time visibility of network topology, traffic, and status in a single, integrated view and perform modeling of designs and configuration changes. The company also has products that perform some of the same functions but on wireless networks. Finally, OPNET offers consulting and professional services. Financials -- OPNET is a profitable small-cap that actually pays a dividend, unusual for a tech company of its size. My several measures, it is...

I often write about tech stocks on this blog. Today I read an interview with one of the most well-known managers of a technology mutual fund. The Wall Street Journal had a conversation with Paul Wick, manager of the Seligman Communications and Information fund (SLMCX). With 20 years as manager of this fund, he has consistently ranked in or near the top 10% among his peers. Mr. Wick makes several points that will be familiar to fans of tech stocks. He comments that many tech stocks have "grown up" (my phrase), have solid business models and have reacted to the downturn by cutting costs and finding other ways to remain profitable. He contends that the tide is turning for many tech sectors and, therefore, the run-up in many tech stocks is justified. Even some of the lower quality companies have reasons to bounce. These are ideas that are not unusual though they are open to dispute among those who feel less bullish on the economy in general or tech stocks in particular. Prompted ...

Oracle released earnings after the close today. The stock immediately fell several percent after hours. Was the sell-off justified? The company indicated that profit rose 4% which was in line with analyst estimates. The top line, however, was a source of concern for investors. The following chart shows Oracle's three primary revenue sources. (Data courtesy of Gridstone Research and Seeking Alpha) As usual, the Updates and Support category showed sequential growth albeit very modest growth. This number includes the software maintenance revenue that tends to provide a solid underpinning to many enterprise software companies. The bad news kicks in when we look at the other two revenue sources. Services has been a huge money maker for companies like IBM and HP. Investors were not pleased to see that Oracle's Services revenue declined to levels not seen since 2007. Worst of all, revenue from New Software Licenses fell to $1 billion, below analyst expectations and down to levels last...

Microsoft (MSFT) reported a decline in revenue in the most recent quarter. Is that a bad omen for the whole tech sector? First, a quick look at the numbers. For the fourth quarter, Microsoft reported net income of $3.05 billion, or 34 cents a share, on revenue of $13.10 billion, down 17 percent from a year ago. Expectations were for earnings of 36 cents a share on revenue of $14.37 billion. Here are a few quick thoughts on three of Microsoft's business segments. Microsoft Office software product line -- As good as Microsoft's suite of Office productivity software is, there is no compelling reason for current users to upgrade if they haven't done so already. The next iteration is not due until next year. Given the cost of Office and the fact that even old versions are packed with plenty of features that most people never even use, it is no surprise to see sales stagnating. There are also much less expensive alternatives to the pricey Microsoft products. Both Google and Zoho ...

It almost looks like a bidding war for Data Domain (DDUP). First a bid from NetApp (NTAP), then a bid from EMC and now a revised bid from NetApp. First, what does Data Domain do? Here is summary of the profile from Yahoo Finance: "Data Domain, Inc. provides deduplication storage appliances for disk-based backup, archiving, and network-based disaster recovery. The company's appliances reduce the storage of redundant copies of data within enterprises. It also offers Replicator software, which allows enterprises to utilize wide area network vaulting for offsite disaster protection and recovery; and a capacity-optimized Virtual Tape Library software option that emulates multiple tape libraries over a fiber channel interface, as well as integrates with an enterprise's existing backup infrastructure." Translation: Data Domain's hardware and software, by reducing duplication and redundancy in a company's data and documents, lessens storage requirements and thereby cu...

Lately I have parsing the Durable Goods reports (read latest post ) to more precisely identify what is going on with technology hardware manufacturing. Today Goldman Sachs released a report that focuses on the other big part of the hi-tech picture: software. Suffice to say, it wasn't pretty. Here is a quote from the report: "The worst of the IT-spending slowdown likely remains in front of us, as we start the clock on slashed 2009 budgets. We forecast 0 percent revenue growth for our group, below consensus at 5 percent, and 1 percent earnings growth, below Street at 2 percent." Goldman presents a recommended list of big-name IT software stocks that they consider to be "safe" choices in the current environment. Microsoft (MSFT) and Oracle (ORCL) are on the list, as well as companies that suggest "strong cost-cutting discipline and mission-critical product sets" like BMC (BMC), CA (CA), and Symantec (SYMC). BMC and CA are big in system management and supp...