Wasn't there a 1970's hit called, "Cisco Systems Was a Friend of Mine"? Cisco (CSCO) is a friend of the markets this morning following what analysts are calling "strong" results this moring. Among the comments from the pencil pushers, Jeffries raised its price target to $32 from $27 and CIBC want from a target of $30 to $33. Many others reiterated buys including AG Edwards, Morgan Stanley, Jeffries and DBAB. So Cisco is up more than 4% and stock futures are getting a lift as well early on. Robert W Baird went with an all out upgrade from neutral to outperform and a target of $27 to $32, which is to say to their analyst, 'good job at admitting you've been wrong for quite some time!'
Cheesecake Factory (CAKE) fell as much as 5% in after hours trading last night after everyone figured out the company grew better than expected earnings by way of a lower tax rate. That's another restaurant chain that you can thank for lowering dining standards in this country. Don't fool yourself, it's restaurants are just multi-million dollar dressed up and noisy cafeterias with unpredictable service and food that I find is awful, though the cheesecake is so, so. Sorry, I'm just pro-locally owned restaurant. The casual dining chain thing is way out of control IMHO.
I talked about bird flu over the weekend and not much has happened with stocks in that space, but big companies aren't taking the threat lightly... Bird flu scary story here.
I mentioned GOOG had dead cat potential Monday night... it clawed it's way to a gain yesterday and is on the move again today. We'll see if the dead cat actually has another life left.
I have been sympathetic to the RIAA and the whole concept of protection of copyright and intellectual property rights, yada, yada yada - though have winced at their heavy handed legal tactics. But I may swing 180-degrees after reading this story about the guy who downloaded 5 songs, crappy ones at that and who is now being sued: RIAA gone nuts. This still brings me back to the Danny DeVito joke in the movie The War of the Roses: "What do you call 5,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A start."
More after the economic data comes through.
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