Wall Street Beat: Tech bellwethers offer view into IT trends

23.03.2012
Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and Apple sparked some of the biggest corporate financial news of the week, highlighting sector trends as IT edges toward what could be its best first quarter on the markets since the dot-com bust in 2000, despite some turbulence during the past few days.

HP, the biggest IT company in the world in terms of revenue in its last fiscal year, Apple, the most profitable tech vendor, and Oracle, the biggest database maker, are bellwethers whose financial results and corporate maneuverings are closely watched for portents of things to come.

Tech stocks in general have been riding a wave of investor confidence in the economy, as unemployment claims in the U.S. decline and housing market data shows the beginnings of a recovery. This week has been something of an anomaly however, as the tech-heavy Nasdaq, at 3,065.50 midafternoon on Friday, looked like it would close lower, or flat, compared to its 3078.32 close on Monday.

Data indicating a slowdown in the Chinese and European economies were blamed for market turbulence this week. Nevertheless, computer companies on the Nasdaq exchange closed Thursday up by 22.72 percent for the year, and with one trading week left to go in the quarter, the Nasdaq could end up at its highest point in about 12 years.

Oracle's was an improvement over the prior quarter's and highlighted the importance of cloud computing.

Oracle said that for the three months ending Feb. 29, net income rose 18 percent year over year to US$2.5 billion, while revenue grew 3 percent to $9 billion. The results were better than analysts expected, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters, and growth rates for both sales and profit were slightly better than last quarter.