Distie dominance
The notable exceptions to this trend were the distributors, all of whom posted healthy gains, Ingram Micro leading the way with a 12 percent jump, then Tech Data with eight percent and Avnet with nearly six percent.
There didn't seem to be any particularly exceptional news coming from the disties last week so, given that the biggest jumps in their share prices were at the start of the week - around the time of the interest rate announcement, we must assume that the lowering of the price of money has a more profound positive effect on their shares than the vendors on our list.
The reason for this is probably because, as much as they provide a lot of other services to the channel, a big part of their function is to act as providers of credit. Most retailers, VARs, etc couldn't turn a profit without being able to offer more products than their cash in the bank can afford at a given time, so they rely on short term credit from the disties.
Given the tiny margins available on most technology products it's safe to assume that the financial services part of the distie business is a pretty important one for their overall profitability. Thus any macroeconomic shift that assists that part of their business is likely to be favourably regarded by investors.
