Juniper's Rising Tide

After a flat open and a little bit of back and forth, the Nasdaq is trying to take the lead and head higher into the afternoon. Away from tech, though, the action is slippery and showing little spark.

Even in tech, Google (GOOG - commentary - Cramer's Take) is struggling today while Apple (AAPL - commentary - Cramer's Take) remains flat, making the two highest-profile mo-mo tech names underperformers.

Juniper (JNPR - commentary - Cramer's Take) is showing the strongest rally among the names I mentioned this morning. I've seen several bullish sell-siders' notes this week about Juniper, most of which seem to argue that the rising tide of Internet video and the capacity constraints developing in many major Internet routes will lift Juniper's boat.

I believe F5 (FFIV - commentary - Cramer's Take), Citrix (CTXS - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Cisco (CSCO - commentary - Cramer's Take) are continuing to take share away from Juniper, although the analysts are probably right about Juniper benefiting from an accelerating growth cycle in its core markets. With F5 and Citrix joining Juniper in the options-backdating penalty box, that leaves Cisco as the best play on the cycle.

I remain long some Cisco, though I haven't even considered buying any more as I start my scaling in. In the very near term, Cisco's action is likely to mirror the market. As I think the path of least resistance remains downward and as I don't think Cisco's about to take off to $30 tomorrow, I don't want to rush into more of this one.

At the time of publication, the firm in which Willard is a partner was net long Google, Apple and Cisco, although positions can change at any time and without notice.

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Cody Willard is the manager of CL Willard Capital Management, LLC. He is a regular guest on Fox News, CNBC and other networks, and he writes a monthly column for the Financial Times. He is also an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and the author of TheCodyReport.net, a monthly stock market newsletter. Willard appreciates your feedback -- click here to send him an email.