There's a real battle under way between Intel and AMD. Both companies are stepping up their sponsorships and using them as a platform to demonstrate their technology.

For a long time the financial services category was a major holdout. Broadly speaking, a lot of financial institutions felt their high-net clients were more interested in sports like golf.

Both companies are benefiting from good demand; Intel is benefiting from good demand for notebooks.

Companies such as Microsoft, Cisco and Intel were just starting at their 10-year anniversary.

The smaller companies are riding the coattails of the larger companies. Historically, if Intel did well, it spoke well for all the semiconductor stocks. This earnings season, there's a very high chance that the coattail effect is going to be broken.

Intel deliberately sought to injure these companies in order to secure their technology.