Steve Ballmer calls it quits

Hello traders everywhere! Adam Hewison here, President of INO.com and Co-creator of MarketClub, with your mid-day market update for Friday, the 23rd of August.

The big news today of course is the announcement from Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) CEO, Steve Ballmer, that he's going to retire within the next 12 months. The news was enough to send the stock of Microsoft up over 7%, which is good news for shareholders.

In my opinion, one of the major reasons why the stock of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been unable to get going over the last decade is its failure to execute on any of the new technologies. Whether its online, mobile, phones, tablets or Windows 8, all of these efforts proved to be disappointments to investors and the market in general.

With Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) rallying strongly in the marketplace today, I think investors are voting with their pocketbook and saying that they are happy to see a change in leadership.

At this juncture, no one knows who is going to take over the CEO position at Microsoft. Whoever takes over that position will have there work cut out for them as they try to reshape Microsoft into a newer, younger, leaner, hipper company.

I am normally an optimist, but in this particular case, I think it's a little too late to try and change the culture and direction of this company.

Today, I will be doing an in-depth analysis of Microsoft and sharing with you my thoughts and what our Trade Triangle technology is saying about this stock.