Through the 90’s, Cisco Systems [CSCO: 18.91, -0.12 (-0.63%)] was known as one of the “4 Horsemen of IT” and was even the largest company by market cap ($500 B) at the peak of the tech bubble in early 2000.   The web is the driver of all information worldwide over the past two decades, thus all recent tech trends revolve around the internet: mobilization, cloud computing, virtualization, social networking and much more.  Consequently enough, Cisco is the dominant provider of the networking gear that runs the internet.  More specifially, Cisco’s bread and butter has been the ethernet switches and overall routers markets with approximately 70% and 50% of the market share, respectively.  To sustain revenue growth, companies like CSCO must adapt to tech trends and enter new markets outside of its core business.

Breaking Ties

On March 16th, CSCO unveiled its two-year secret project: the

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Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) declared today that it has agreed to buy digital camcorder-maker Pure Digital Technologies to enhance its presence in the consumer market.

The leading maker of networking equipment said that it would pay $590 million in stock to acquire Pure Digital's shares. Cisco also stated that it would pay retention-based incentives of up to $15 million to employees who stay at the acquired company.

"The acquisition of Pure Digital is key to Cisco's strategy to expand our momentum in the media-enabled home and to capture the consumer market transition to visual networking," said the senior vice president of Cisco's Corporate Development and Consumer Groups.

Pure Digital Technologies, which enjoyed runaway success with its Flip Video, Ultra and Mino products, said that it has sold over 2 million cameras.

CSCO is a Zacks #3 Rank ("Hold") stock.

"CSCO" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?...

By Horacio Marquez Contributing Editor During the Internet boom in the latter part of the 1990s, Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) was the king of the “must-have” stocks, with shares of the maker of telecommunications-networking gear soaring 400% from June 1998 to March 2000. At Friday’s close of $23.61, Cisco’s shares are down 69% from their all-time high of $77.31 and 31% from their 52-week high of $34.24, as most investors realize this will never be the great growth stock that it was a decade ago. But that doesn’t mean investors should write off Cisco. Quite the opposite, in fact. When it comes to Internet-infrastructure gear, Cisco remains the proverbial “800-pound gorilla,” the market leader and dominant-industry player. Cisco recently reported strong earnings, meeting market expectations. Company Chief Executive Officer John Chambers - who is well known for “telling it like it is” - ...

This is another strategy which can be set up using Zignals stock alerts. It’s a variation of a moving average strategy published back in May; this time a shorter time frame and more responsive exponential moving average is used to generate trade signals. A 5-day EMA crossover of a 10-day EMA was used to generate trades; buying upside crosses and selling on a downward cross of the slower EMA by the faster one.

Test period: A complete bull-bear cycle defined by the S&P (March 20th 2000 to October 8th 2007).

I tested on two groups of stocks:

US stocks (Active Trader): AAPL BA C CAT CSCO DIS GM HPQ IBM INTC IP JPM KO MSFT SBUX T WMT

European ADRs: ALU BHP BP SAP DT ASML STM …

Notable Earnings calls for Tuesday

Here are the earnings calls we’ll be keeping an eye on tomorrow:

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) is forecast to post earnings of 36 cents a share excluding stock option costs in the fiscal third quarter, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet Research.

Fannie Mae (FNM) is estimated to report loss of 81 cents a share in the first quarter, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet Research.

Qwest Communications International Inc. (Q) is projected to post a first- quarter profit of 10 cents a share, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet Research.

MGM Mirage (MGM) is likely to report a first-quarter profit of 44 cents a share, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet Research.

Molson Coors Brewing Co. (TAP.NV.T) is expected to report first-quarter earnings of 25 cents a share, according to analysts …

In this week's strategy test I take a look at on-balance-volume. Unlike the majority of the technical indicators, on-balance-volume (and accumulation/distribution) uses price as an actionary tab to measured volume; adding volume to a cumulative total on a higher close, but subtracting on a lower close. But how well does it perform as a trading indicator? The basic test looked at buying when on-balance-volume was positive and selling when negative. Test period: A complete bull-bear cycle defined by the S&P (March 20th 2000 to October 8th 2007). Stocks: Active Trader list (AAPL BA C CAT CSCO DIS GM HPQ IBM INTC IP JPM KO MSFT SBUX T WMT) Number of shares: 100 Commission: $9.95 (included in the loss calculation) Trades: Round-trip only; partial trades were excluded. As in the earlier stochastic analysis the number of trades executed was very large; just over 1,000 over the 7 year period. This ...