Key Tech Majors Hit New 52-Week Highs (AAPL, BIDU, CIEN, CTXS, EBAY, GOOG, JNPR, TLAB, WDC)

While the markets have started to sell off by what feels almost as ‘sharply,’ we have noticed late morning that a huge number 0f major technology stocks have hit 52-week highs on an intra-day basis.  Traders used this is a chance to lock in gains.  We have some added color on each below to see where these are coming from and where they were in the past.  In fact, most of these are back to or above pre-Lehman levels…

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is still positive and shares hit a new high of $186.79 today.  This is the highest level since June-2008 and is still under the highs of January 2008 and December-2007 when Apple was north of $200.00.

Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) is now down on the day and under $400.00 but the stock hit an intra-day high of $408.00.

Ciena Corp. (NASDAQ: CIEN) hit a new high of $16.63 and is now challenging levels not seen since August and September of last year.

Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) must be doing well with its Xen virtualization, GoToMeeting and GoToMyPC.  Its shares are still up and it hit a new high of $37.95… highs not seen since February-2008.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) seems to be carefree over the Skype suit.  This hit a new high of $24.62 today, but keep in mind that this was a $40.00 stock two years ago.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) almost took out $500… The search leader stock is still in positive territory but it was up almost 2% this morning and hit $497.37… Two years ago this was north of $700.00 and we were all goo-goo eyed over whether $900 or $1,000.00 was a reality.

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: JNPR) hit $27.53 this morning and was up close to 2% at the time.  That is up over 100% from year-lows and still well under the $30’s highs of two years ago.

Tellabs Inc. (NASDAQ: TLAB) is back under $7.00 now, but this one hit a high of $7.15 this morning.  Two years ago, this was a $10.00-plus stock.

Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) is magically back up to $37.00, up a whopping 300% from the death-blow lows over the last year.  This is now within striking distance of its early-2008 highs of $40.00 for one day in June-2008.

Traders are taking advantage of these highs now based on the notion that the future is still not going to be as robust the past and the expectations of growth in the past.  Some of us might even say, they are finally taking advantage of the opportunity to lighten up after monumental gains.

JON C. OGG