Wall Street Beat: IBM, Apple Riding High-PCWorld

Passes the second anniversary of the great Recession market low this week, remains a pillar industry technology for the company's revenue and investor confidence, as industry bellwethers like IBM and Apple makes impressive share gains.

On March 9, 2009 hit the tech-heavy Nasdaq 1268.64, its lowest point in seven years. In afternoon trading Friday, the index was at 2718.80. Kind of share value increases to tech companies experienced since market bottom two years ago is difficult to maintain, and growth in it stocks, on average, smoothed somewhat recently.

But IT sector financial news this week shows that corporate demand for it and consumer demand for mobile devices will remain high.

A jump in IBM shares to a record level was only one cursor confidence in corporate it. Analysts met with IBM management Tuesday and issued a series of optimistic reports on the heard.

At least four analysts upgraded their recommendations or price targets, and as a result, IBM shares were higher by $ 3.58 to close a record United States $ 165.86 Wednesday. IBM advanced business services and its emphasis on high-margin software and hardware have impressed market Intel.

"We get the sense IBM has rejuvenated pride in massive USD 6 billion annual research and development spend in contrast to multiple standards/commodity-dependent competitors to see continued opportunities to still higher margin mix," said Robert Cirha, in a note, Caris and company research.

IBM, a major bellwether for the enterprise market, started a strong tech earnings season in January, reporting, net income for the fourth quarter increased 9 percent year-on-year, $ 5.3 billion, while revenue rose 7 percent to $ 29 billion. It was the strongest quarterly sales increase to IBM for nearly 10 years, and in accordance with the predictions, enterprise sales, special software, will be an important driving force for growth in the foreseeable future.

Mobile devices including the tablets will also fuel growth for tech, according to a row of recent reports. For example, delivered 10.1 million media tablets in the fourth quarter of 2010, more than double the 4,5 million shipped in the third quarter, according to an IDC report Thursday.

The report also said that the eReader market jumped up in the fourth quarter. Strong sales of Amazon's Kindle and gains from Pandigital, Barnes and Noble, and Sony, Hanvon also contributed to the growth of the market, IDC said. EReader market in the fourth quarter more than doubled volume from the previous quarter, with more than 6 million units shipped, IDC said.

"Strong holiday sales of media tablets were in line with IDC projections and strong consumer interest in the category while the device vendors offer encrypted products competitive with Apple's iPad and now iPad 2," said Loren Loverde, an IDC vice President, in the report.

Apple, which has more than 90 percent of the Tablet market at this time, publish iPad 2 Friday and is basking in the glow of its latest hit product. Apple shares were up by $ 4.89 to $ 351.52 in late afternoon trade.

Increased dissemination of tablets and advanced smartphones also have a positive effect on corporate equipment sales, as companies scramble to update the network to handle an increase in traffic from the new devices.

Global WLAN (wireless LAN) equipment sales jumped by 28 percent to $ 769 million in the fourth quarter of 2010 compared with the same period in 2009, according to a report from Infonetics Research last week. On Wednesday, said a report by Dell'Oro group that WLAN equipment sales for all 2010 jumped 25 percent to exceed USD 5 billion.

"We believe that it is another sign of the continuing importance of wireless LAN to companies; network infrastructure, and a global economy that is on the upswing, "said Loren Shalinsky, senior analyst Wireless LAN research at Dell'Oro, in the report.

With attention on the company's software and mobile devices had not sector PC great respect at the latest. But iSuppli this week pointed out that global PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2010 totaled 93.1 million units, up 5 percent from 88.7.1 million in the third quarter of 2010 and an increase of 4.7 per cent from 88.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

PC shipments in fourth quarter hit a new quarterly record, "blowing past" the previous record 88.9 million units in the fourth quarter of 2009, the report said.

"With his record performance during the last three months of 2010 worldwide business as PC took yet another step towards becoming a market generate 100 million units per quarter," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst at iSuppli. "With the market comes back strong text wrapping feature growth in the mid-teens, PC industry will look back on 2010 as a year, which exceeded expectations."

Although much of the growth in the last two years took place in the quarters immediately after the 2009 trough, leader of the tech sector still.

In the third quarter last year, the Nasdaq and other major United States exchanges were already back to the level they were at before Wall Street fell in September 2008. Tech had little to do with the essence of our confidence in the markets. Although tech stocks slumped for most of the third quarter last year as fears of a double-dip recession took hold, it companies, reporting strong sales especially for companies, began to lead markets after U.S. Labor Day holiday in early September.

Now, the computer shares on the exchange is on average, 1.56 percent since Jan 1 and telecom equipment is 0.13 percent--both large better than any other sector except for industrial customers. Nasdaq itself is 1.82 percent since the beginning of the year and 14 percent in the last 12 months.

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