CSCO in Sweet Spot Ahead of Earnings
By Mike Paulenoff, MPTrader.com
On May 10, we noted in our Trading Room that Cisco (CSCO) has a potentially spectacular longer-term technical set up that exhibits a huge accumulation period and which is flirting with an upside breakout that will have far-reaching and very positive implications for the company going forward.
The stock was trading at 33.64/65 at the time. Fast-forward to yesterday, and CSCO opened on a 1.2% up-gap, closing at $34.23, in reaction to both Morgan Stanley's upgrade to OW from EW, a revised upside target of 39 from 32, and "security-driven networking share gains over the longer-term."
The recent/current "WannaCry" ransomware attacks tangentially benefit CSCO, which combined with Morgan Stanley's fundamental enthusiasm dovetails with my increasingly bullish intermediate and longer term technical outlook calling for a challenge and hurdle of key resistance at 34.53-.60 that triggers upside targets of 35.60-.90, then 37-38 in route to my optimal target zone of 41-43.
Keep in mind, that CSCO reports quarterly earnings tomorrow, Wed May 17, after the close. The fact that Morgan Stanley upgraded CSCO right in front of earnings coupled with the bullish technical set up suggest strongly that CSCO just might be entering a "research sweet spot" in the days directly ahead.
The recent/current "WannaCry" ransomware attacks tangentially benefit CSCO, which combined with Morgan Stanley's fundamental enthusiasm dovetails with my increasingly bullish intermediate and longer term technical outlook calling for a challenge and hurdle of key resistance at 34.53-.60 that triggers upside targets of 35.60-.90, then 37-38 in route to my optimal target zone of 41-43.
Keep in mind, that CSCO reports quarterly earnings tomorrow, Wed May 17, after the close. The fact that Morgan Stanley upgraded CSCO right in front of earnings coupled with the bullish technical set up suggest strongly that CSCO just might be entering a "research sweet spot" in the days directly ahead.
Mike Paulenoff is a veteran technical strategist and financial author, and host of MPTrader.com, a live trading room of his market analysis and stock trading alerts.
