Data Storage In Play Ahead of October Earnings

• By the tickerspy.com Staff
• On 10:05 am EDT, Friday October 9, 2009

With important earnings reports later this month, investors are moving to the data storage and electronic archiving sector.

Ahead of the bell this morning NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP - News), the second-largest U.S.-listed data storage play, traded higher on upgrades following its decision to resume issuing guidance. The company forecast EPS between 29 and 30 cents in the fiscal second-quarter, and between 35 and 36 cents in the third.

According to coverage by the Associated Press, Jeffiries analyst William Choi said, "NetApp is benefitting from improving demand trends in storage," and complimented the company's new CEO Tom Georgens for his "focused strategy." NetApp received an upgrade to Buy at ThinkEquity and a pair of price target boosts to $31 from analysts Needham and Wedbush.

As a whole, the Data Storage Stocks Index is trading higher today, led by San Jose, California-based Quantum Corp. (NYSE: QTM - News) with a 5% gain.

It will be interesting to track the sector heading into earnings season, which will be picking up speed in two weeks. Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX - News) will report its numbers on October 19. Imation (NYSE: IMN - News) will report on the 20th, followed by EMC (NYSE: EMC - News), Isilon Systems (NASDAQ: ISLN - News), and Western Digital (NYSE: WDC - News) on the 22nd.

Over the last month, only Seagate, Hutchinson Technology (NASDAQ: HTCH - News), and solid-state drive player STEC (NASDAQ: STEC - News) remain negative. STEC is off by -36% off its September all-time high.

As of this writing, the Data Storage Stocks Index is one of the 50 worst-performing tickerspy Indexes, trading flat as the broader markets tick higher.

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