So far this year, shares in IT companies rose steadily until April and then tumbled on economic uncertainty and weak sales in PC and consumer electronics markets. However, though computer stocks on the Nasdaq have not yet recovered to where they were at the beginning of the second quarter, they are nevertheless 21.39 percent higher in aggregate than they were at the beginning of the year. Tech, media and telecom stocks on the New York Stock Exchange are up 10.07 percent for the year.

The biggest boost for the IT sector this week was , which showed that for the three months ending July 12, sales rose year over year by 4 percent to hit US$11.7 billion, while net income rose 56 percent to $1.9 billion.

For the current quarter, Cisco forecast year-over-year revenue growth of between 2 percent and 4 percent, and earnings per share growth of 45 percent to 47 percent. That guidance was "a cautiously upbeat forecast, in contrast with the company's more pessimistic outlook three months ago," noted a research note from Canaccord Genuity.

Cisco officials were hopeful but cautious during the company's earnings call with analysts.

"With the exception of Federal government, we saw positive growth and/or uptrend especially in the second half of the quarter," said CEO John Chambers, according to a of the company's earnings call from Seeking Alpha. "Now I want to say, it is way too early to call this a trend, but if this were to continue through Q1, this would be a solid indicator of potential future market improvement in the U.S."