In a post last week I talked about using this week's lull as a chance to catch up on industry groups. That post focused on agriculture stocks but now I want to change gears and talk about tech stocks. Specifically, I want to delve into Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO), EMC Corp (EMC), Intel Corp (INTC), and QUALCOMM Inc (QCOM). Aside from being some of the more well-known names in the group, these four stocks also have the dubious distinction of being analyst darlings. Let's start with the charts...

Charts Courtesy of Thomson Financial

Keeping with the theme of a longer-term perspective, I wanted to focus on the monthly charts. This quad-view shows us the action for the last 6 years and the point that immediately jumps out is that each stock is flirting with support. With CSCO, EMC, and QCOM we find the shares testing levels that were important since 2004. Intel is slightly different in that it is testing a low from October 2002.

Pure technicians may disagree with my comment that these stocks are testing support and argue that we have already seen a breakdown. Especially in the current market conditions, I tend to give charts a bit of wiggle room. However, I don't think there is any denying that the trend for this year has definitely been down and these stocks appear to be vulnerable. This is worth noting when you consider the sentiment on the Street.

Cisco Systems	EMC Corp
Intel	QUALCOMM

According to Zacks, CSCO is the "least" liked name with "only" 59% of the analysts giving it a buy rating. The other 3 names show 70%, or more, as buys. That seems overly enthusiastic given the charts above. However, I don't think that this is a case where analysts have recently jumped aboard and are trying to pick a bottom. I pulled data from January of this year and found analysts were firmly in the bull camp then.

In other words, we seem to have a case of trapped bulls. The analysts have been caught on the wrong side of the decline and I think one risk here is they are looking to exit into strength. This would create a potential headwind the stocks will have to fight. The other risk is that they get spooked and we see mass downgrades.