The Best And Worst Technology Stocks Of 2011 (So Far)

A Look At This Year's Technology Stocks So Far

Technology stocks were either really good or not good at all in the first half of 2011, as 34 IT vendor stocks surveyed by CRN showed that 15 recorded double-digit percentage gains through the first six months of the year (two by more than 50 percent).

Meanwhile, eight stocks fell by more than 10 percent for the same period. Here's a closer look at the best and worst channel stocks of 2011 (so far). For comparison purposes, the Dow Jones increased 7.2 percent while the Nasdaq was up 4.5 percent through the first six months of the year.

Cisco Systems

June 30, 2011: $15.61
Dec. 31, 2010: $20.23
Change: -22.8%

Shares of Cisco Systems slid 15 percent in the first quarter and the slide continued in the second quarter. The biggest drop of the quarter came May 13 (84 cents per share) soon after Cisco announced further layoffs and a plan to remove $1 billion in expenses after a downbeat earnings call.

Lexmark International

June 30, 2011: $29.26
Dec. 31, 2010: $34.82
Change: -16.0%

Lexmark shares fell 16 percent through the first half of the year, a decline even more alarming considering the company's stock was up 6.4 percent through the first quarter. Shares fell $5.53 on April 26 after the company reported first-quarter financial results that Wall Street didn't care for.

Juniper Networks

June 30, 2011: $31.50
Dec. 31, 2010: $36.92
Change: -14.7%

Juniper's stock decline in the second quarter was even sharper than its rise in the first quarter. After watching shares increase 14 percent to $42.08 in the first quarter, Juniper shares plummeted to $31.50 just three months later. On June 1, shares fell $3.64 (about 10 percent) after CEO Kevin Johnson offered a cautious outlook at an investors conference. Juniper also made news in June by hiring Cisco's director of cloud and virtualization solutions.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

June 30, 2011: $6.99
Dec. 31, 2010: $8.18
Change: -14.5%

A 5 percent stock increase that AMD earned in the first quarter was more than wiped out in the second quarter. Shares had closed as high as $9.10 on April 29 before beginning a gradual decline. The company's shares closed below $7 on June 24 for the first time last October. Its stock decline came amid reports that it had offered its CEO job to Mark Hurd, who declined.

Hewlett-Packard

June 30, 2011: $36.40
Dec. 31, 2010: $42.10
Change: -13.5%

Hewlett-Packard shares fell nearly 10 percent on May 17 after the company posted less-than-spectacular financial results. The company also continued a massive reorganization that included many HP executives coming and going.

Panasonic

June 30, 2011: $12.24
Dec. 31, 2010: $14.10
Change: -13.2%

Panasonic's shares fell below the $12 mark on May 13 and stayed there until late June. The company's stock got a little boost after revealing it planned to launch a ruggedized Android ToughBook tablet in the fourth quarter.

Quantum

June 30, 2011: $3.30
Dec. 31, 2010: $3.72
Change: -11.3%

Quantum sales were off by almost one-third through the first quarter but rebounded in the second quarter to offset most of the first-quarter share loss. Shares jumped 17 percent to $3.10 on April 13 after Quantum said that NetApp will start marketing and selling its StorNext File System and StorNext Storage Manager software through its worldwide sales network. A week earlier, Quantum said President and COO Jon Gacek has succeeded Rick Belluzzo as CEO of the storage vendor.

Lenovo Group

June 30, 2011: $11.38
Dec. 31, 2010: $12.70
Change: -10.4%

Lenovo shares were off 11 percent in the first quarter but increased slightly in the second quarter. Its $11.38 close on June 30 was the highest of the month. On June 1, Lenovo said it had agreed to acquire a majority stake in German PC company Medion AG in a bold move to expand its market share in Europe.

Xerox

June 30, 2011: $10.41
Dec. 31, 2010: $11.52
Change: -9.6%

Xerox took big steps to re-engage with the channel in the first half of 2011, holding its first partner conference in years, recruiting MSPs with its eConcierge managed print services tool and allying with Cisco Systems on a managed print and outsourced cloud services initiative. Still, it wasn't enough to woo Wall Street as the company's stock was down nearly 10 percent for that period.

Microsoft

June 30, 2011: $26.00
Dec. 31, 2010: $27.91
Change: -6.8%

Microsoft's shares fell 9 percent in the first quarter put picked up some steam in the second quarter. Still, it was a disappointing first half on Wall Street for one of the company's bellwethers. Its June 30 closing price was Microsoft's highest since April 3. That was two days after going live with its much-anticipated Office 365 cloud application service.

CA Technologies

June 30, 2011: $22.84
Dec. 31, 2010: $24.44
Change: -6.5%

CA reported dismal earnings on May 12 and the next day the company's shares fell more than 8 percent. The company also revealed plans to sell its antivirus business.

QLogic

June 30, 2011: $15.92
Dec. 31, 2010: $17.02
Change: -6.5%

Qlogic shares reached as high as $18 on May 5, then began a slow decline to below $16 per share. May 5 also happened to be the day the company gained market share in Fibre Channel and released its fourth-quarter financials.

NetApp

June 30, 2011: $52.78
Dec. 31, 2010: $54.96
Change: -4.0%

NetApp had posted a double-digit percentage share loss in the first quarter but picked a good chunk of that back up in the second quarter to close the first six months down only 4 percent. Shares had closed as high as $55.33 in late May. In mid-June, NetApp extended the capabilities of its OnCommand Management software to improve its services capabilities in cloud environments and to better work with third-party cloud management solutions.

Red Hat

June 30, 2011: $45.90
Dec. 31, 2010: $45.65
Change: 0.5%

The good news for Red Hat's stock for the first half of the year is that there is no bad news. The company's shares increased 25 cents per share during that period. In May, Red Hat said the channel will account for between 70 percent and 75 percent of sales within two years.

Apple

June 30, 2011: $335.67
Dec. 31, 2010: $322.56
Change: 4.1%

Poor Apple. After an 8 percent increase in its shares in the first quarter, the stock fell slightly in the second quarter to close the first half up 4.1 percent to $335.67. Despite the modest increase, it's still the most expensive stock in CRN's survey, almost twice as much as IBM.

Apple is always making news, but more recently it was competitors HP (TouchPad) and Cisco (Cius) grabbing headlines with their iPad-competitive tablets, though the iPad still is the dominant player in the market.

Oracle

June 30, 2011: $32.91
Dec. 31, 2010: $31.30
Change: 5.1%

Oracle shares were a steady bet through the first half of 2011, with Wall Street apparently liking the fact that Larry Ellison has kept the company in the news, most recently with plans to acquire Ellison's Pillar Data.

Intel

June 30, 2011: $22.16
Dec. 31, 2010: $21.03
Change: 5.4%

Shares of Intel jumped $1.53 per share on April 20 a day after the company reported strong first-quarter financial results. Later in the quarter, Intel unveiled its Ultrabook concept and the Atom mobile processor road map.

Western Digital

June 30, 2011: $36.38
Dec. 31, 2010: $33.90
Change: 7.3%

Western Digital shares reached a high of $41.24 on April 21 but fell below the $40 mark a week later and haven't returned. The good news is that shares also closed as low as $33.59 as recently as June 13, indicating the stock is back on the rise. In April, the storage company reported net income of $146 million, or 62 cents per share, on sales of $2.25 billion. All figures were less than Western Digital's year-ago results.

Seagate Technology

June 30, 2011: $16.16
Dec. 31, 2010: $15.03
Change: 7.5%

Seagate shares fell 4 percent in the first quarter, but the company regained that loss and more in the second quarter to close the first half up 7.5 percent.

The big spike came in April, when shares closed as high as $18.04 on April 20 after Seagate revealed it planned to buy Samsung's hard-drive business.

VMware

June 30, 2011: $100.23
Dec. 31, 2010: $88.91
Change: 12.7%

After falling more than 8 percent in the first quarter, VMware shares were one of the hottest tech stocks in the second quarter and closed the first half up 12.7 percent. During the quarter, VMware launched its Cloud Foundry Platform-as-a-Service, which CEO Paul Maritz said was one of the calculated risks that has led his company to success.

Salesforce.com

June 30, 2011: $148.98
Dec. 31, 2010: $132.00
Change: 12.9%

Salesforce.com shares saw most of their first-half gain in the second quarter, including almost $11 on May 20 after the company posted solid earnings. Meanwhile, CEO Marc Benioff garnered headlines of his own by saying Salesforce.com has "moved on" from the cloud.

Motorola Solutions

June 30, 2011: $46.04
Jan. 4, 2011: $39.77
Change: 15.8%

Motorola split into two companies early in 2011, with Motorola Solutions, which is focused on the commercial market, getting good buzz from investors. Its stock is up nearly 16 percent through the first six months of the year and in June, Motorola's David Green said carriers need more help from solution providers.

IBM

June 30, 2011: $171.55
Dec. 31, 2010: $146.76
Change: 16.9%

IBM issued a 75-cent-per-share dividend in early May, evidence that the company is doing well. It was already trading at almost $168 per share then and increased even further by the end of June.

In June, IBM also celebrated its 100th birthday.

Citrix Systems

June 30, 2011: $80.00
Dec. 31, 2010: $68.41
Change: 16.9%

Citrix shares increased $7.54 on April 28 to $85.37 and hit a first-half high mark on May 31 of $87.62 before declining again. Still, the company's stock increased almost 17 percent through the first six months of the year. In late June, Citrix continued its cloud strategy with an investment in Core Mobile Networks.

Symantec

June 30, 2011: $19.72
Dec. 31, 2010: $16.74
Change: 17.8%

Symantec shares briefly crossed the $20-per-share threshold in May after reporting fourth-fiscal quarter results, but dipped a bit before the end of the second quarter. Still, the security solutions developer has experienced a 17.8 percent increase through the first six months.

SAP

June 30, 2011: $60.65
Dec. 31, 2010: $50.61
Change: 19.8%

Investors like when companies issue them dividends, so they were likely happy when SAP issued an 82.5-cent-per-share dividend on May 23. That may have helped offset a $4.68 drop that shareholders had on April 27. All told, investors saw SAP's stock increase 20 percent in the first half of 2011. Behind the scenes, SAP debuted new releases of its BusinessObjects Edge and Crystal Server business intelligence software on June 14.

EMC

June 30, 2011: $27.55
Dec. 31, 2010: $22.90
Change: 20.3%

EMC shares closed at $28.47 on May 31, falling almost a dollar over the next month but by then it was enough to give the storage giant a 20 percent stock-price increase over the first half of 2011. In late June, EMC ssaid it had hired former NetApp channel chief Leonard Iventosch as vice president of Americas channel sales.

Brocade Communications

June 30, 2011: $6.46
Dec. 31, 2010: $5.29
Change: 22.1%

Brocade topped $7 per share in early June before settling down a bit in the last week of the second quarter. Overall, the company's stock increased a healthy 22 percent in 2011 thus far. Brocade made several technology announcements in the second quarter including the introduction of its new CloudPlex cloud architecture, an open framework for building virtualized data centers.

Check Point Software Technologies

June 30, 2011: $56.85
Dec. 31, 2010: $46.26
Change: 22.9%

Check Point saved its best for last, posting its highest close of the year on the last day of the second quarter. The company's shares had ranged between $51 and $56 for most of the past three months. Check Point unveiled the 2012 version of ZoneAlarm security to provide the latest in antivirus technologies on June 7.

Dell

June 30, 2011: $16.67
Dec. 31, 2010: $13.55
Change: 23.0%

Dell shares enjoyed a slow, gradual climb over the first half. The company's stock passed the $15-per-share mark in late April and continued to increase after that. Dell has been busy on the acquisition front, most recently grabbing RNA Networks, a developer of memory virtualization technology.

Websense

June 30, 2011: $25.97
Dec. 31, 2010: $20.25
Change: 28.2%

Websense closed out the first half with its highest stock price of the year, $25.97. In fact, that was the company's highest closing price since December 2006. On April 26, Websense reported $8.1 million in net income on $88.6 million in sales for the first quarter of 2011.

Netgear

June 30, 2011: $43.72
Dec. 31, 2010: $33.68
Change: 29.8%

Netgear shares gained nearly 30 percent in the first half, this including a first quarter when shares were down nearly 4 percent from the beginning of the year. The big jump occurred April 29 when shares jumped $7.75 after the company posted an earnings increase of nearly 55 percent and a 32 percent increase in sales.

CommVault Systems

June 30, 2011: $44.45
Dec. 31, 2010: $28.62
Change: 55.3%

CommVault gained $2.47 per share on May 10 and added another $5 per share over the next 50 days to close the first half of 2011 with a 55.3 percent increase. On May 31, the company entered into an OEM agreement with NetApp, under which CommVault's Simpana 9 software will be integrated with NetApp SnapShot and replication technology under the NetApp SnapProtect brand.

NetSuite

June 30, 2011: $39.20
Dec. 31, 2010: $25.00
Change: 56.8%

With a 56.8 percent increase through the first half, NetSuite has had a lot of good days on Wall Street in 2011. But perhaps none were better than April 29, when shares increased $4.51 after the company reported solid earnings. Meanwhile, NetSuite unveiled plans to add social networking through an alliance with Yammer in early May.