Arista Networks, Inc. (ANET)

Capex trends, chip demand and IT spending commentary are among the things to watch as dozens of tech companies report this earnings season.

In a challenge to Broadcom and others, Cisco plans to sell a new switching/routing processor and license its routing software to other hardware makers.

Though major chip suppliers shared both good and bad news in October, on the whole the positives outweighed the negatives.

A good third quarter is overshadowed by ugly guidance for the fourth quarter and beyond.

CEO Ullal is going through expectations of reduced business from a large client going forward right now.

Let's jump into the charts to see if there is a point or level where we might consider buying.

Making money in the market is much more a function of trade management than market prediction.

Intel suggests the recent slowdown it's seen in demand from cloud clients is ending, and Amazon's latest capital spending numbers support this claim.

As cloud giants digest some of their past investments in hardware and chips, they're still investing heavily in growing their data center capacity. That's ultimately a positive for data center REITs and chip suppliers with cloud exposure.

As NetApp tumbled and sparked a broader selloff in enterprise hardware stocks, AWS and other cloud giants are still reporting strong growth.

The deal drives home the importance of cutting-edge optical component and module technology to networking hardware vendors. It also might strengthen Cisco's sales pitch to cloud giants.

These top picks rose between 22% and 55% in the first half of 2019.

The data center switch supplier still has strong long-term growth drivers. But it could see more profit-taking following a weak Q2 outlook blamed on softening cloud demand.

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"We are still perceived as just a hardware company and that's not true," Robbiati said.

Though there's a pocket or two of softness, cloud capex growth remains pretty strong overall.

Some tech giants are growing their cloud investments a lot faster than others. Video needs often have something to do with it.

The types of switches that Amazon reportedly wants to sell to businesses have seen limited enterprise traction to date. However, recent tech trends could make them more popular.

While many traditional enterprise IT giants are contending with weak hardware demand, things look much better for some of their chip and component suppliers.

Though it's getting a boost from buybacks, acquisitions and favorable IT spending trends, the networking giant only slightly beat estimates and offered in-line guidance.

Many large businesses are now opting to shut down existing data centers and move their contents to public clouds. Amazon is well-positioned to grab a large portion of these deals.

The big change in the stock market Tuesday is leadership, but a strong close is still needed.

This earnings season is already showing that capital spending from cloud giants remains far stronger than spending from traditional carriers. That affects quite a few hardware and chip firms.