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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market snapped its three-day skid with small caps pacing the Tuesday rebound. The Russell 2000 jumped 1.2% while the S&P 500 added 0.2% with eight sectors ending in the green. However, the advance masked an afternoon slide from intraday highs that caused the Dow to end flat.

Equity indices began the day with slim gains after investors received a trio of quarterly reports from the financial sector (+0.5%). Citigroup (C 51.47, +1.57) was a notable standout, surging 3.2%, in reaction to its better than expected results combined with news indicating the company will exit its consumer business in 11 markets around the world. However, the broader sector could not pull away from the S&P 500 as JPMorgan Chase (JPM 57.99, -0.17) and Wells Fargo (WFC 48.83, -1.37) weighed. Shares of JPM lost 0.3% following a bottom-line miss while Wells Fargo fell 2.7% after reporting in-line results.

Although the financial sector contributed to an opening boost, the market did not build on its early gain until the Russell 2000 climbed above its opening high. That strength emboldened bargain hunters who rushed into recently-battered areas like transports and chipmakers.

However, the intraday strength began fading shortly after noon ET with selling activity accelerating as crude oil plunged into the pit close. The energy component dove nearly 5.0% to $81.81/bbl, dragging the energy sector (-1.2%) down with it. The sharp drop sent oil to levels last seen in mid-2012, while the energy sector extended its October loss to 10.9%.

The afternoon retreat from highs was also fueled in part by weakness in the health care sector (-0.8%). The group tried to stage an intraday bounce, but was held back by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 97.01, -2.11), which fell 2.1% despite beating earnings estimates and hiking its guidance.

Even though the S&P 500 gave back its entire advance, the areas that displayed strength in the morning maintained their gains. Transport stocks underpinned the industrial sector (+1.3%) with the Dow Jones Transportation Average climbing 2.6%. JetBlue Airways (JBLU 10.23, +0.82) soared 8.7% to lead the way while shipper Kirby (KEX 99.63, -0.20) was the lone decliner.

Elsewhere, the relative strength among chipmakers sent the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.9%. Skyworks (SWKS 48.91, +3.59) was the standard-bearer, rallying 7.9% after boosting its guidance while Intel (INTC 32.14, +0.67) rose 2.1% ahead of its quarterly report. For its part, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.3%) ended a bit ahead of the broader market.

Also of note, the Dollar Index (85.81, +0.28) spent the day in positive territory while Treasuries finished just below their overnight highs. The 10-yr note added 24 ticks to send its yield lower by nine basis points to 2.20%.

Participation remained on the strong side with more than 940 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET, while the Retail Sales report for September (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%), September PPI (consensus 0.1%), and October Empire Manufacturing (expected 20.4) will all be released at 8:30 ET. Also of note, the Business Inventories report for August (consensus 0.4%) and the Fed's Beige Book for October will cross the wires at 10:00 ET and 14:00 ET, respectively.


•S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
•Nasdaq Composite +1.2% YTD
•Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.6% YTD
•Russell 2000 -8.8% YTD
DJ30 -5.88 NASDAQ +13.52 SP500 +2.96 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1813/2.15 bln/1048 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1884/944.4 mln/1209 3:35 pm :

•Oil prices dropped hard in afternoon trading, leaving both Brent crude oil and WTI crude oil sitting near session lows
•WTI ended today's pit trading session down almost $4/barrel (or -5%) to $81.81/barrel
•Natural gas sold off this afternoon, not as bad as oil, but it still dropped 2.5% to $3.82/MMBtu
•Gold and silver held modest gains today, while copper finished over 1% higher.
•Dec gold rose 0.4% to $1234.50/oz, while Dec silver rose 0.4% to $17.41/oz.
5:10 pm Linear Tech reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q2 revs below consensus (LLTC) : Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $0.53 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.53; revenues rose 9.0% year/year to $371.06 mln vs the $372.37 mln consensus.

The Board of Directors authorized the Company to purchase, depending on market conditions, up to 10 million shares of its outstanding common stock in the open market over the next two years.
Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs -6% to -3% sequentially (~$348.8-359.9 mln) vs. $367.58 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

5:01 pm Linear Tech announces planned retirement of Paul Coghlan and implements CFO transition plan; Donald Zerio to be promoted to CFO (LLTC) : Co announced that Paul Coghlan, the Company's Chief Financial Officer, plans to retire at the end of the current fiscal year in July 2015. Donald Zerio, the current Linear Technology Corporate Controller and a thirteen year Linear veteran will be promoted to CFO on June 29, 2015. In the interim months, Messrs. Coghlan and Zerio will continue to work closely together to ensure a smooth transition. Mr. Coghlan will continue to work for the Company on a part time consulting basis until June 30, 2016.

4:09 pm Intel beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 rev in-line -- midpoint above consensus (INTC) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.66 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.65; revenues rose 7.9% year/year to $14.55 bln vs the $14.45 bln consensus.

Gross margin 65% vs. 66% +/- a couple % points guidancePC Client Group revenue of $9.2 billion, up 6% sequentially and up 9% year-over-year.Data Center Group revenue of $3.7 billion, up 5% sequentially and up 16% year-over-year.Internet of Things Group revenue of $530 million, down 2% sequentially and up 14% year-over-year. Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $14.2-15.2 bln vs. $14.48 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
Gross margin percentage: 64%, plus or minus a couple of % points. R&D plus MG&A spending: ~$4.9 billion. Full-year capital spending: $11.0 billion, plus or minus $500 million.

3:24 pm SAP AG and IBM (IBM) partner to accelerate enterprise cloud adoption (SAP) : The co and IBM (IBM) announced that SAP has selected IBM as a premier strategic provider of Cloud infrastructure services for its business critical applications -- accelerating customers' ability to run core business in the cloud. The SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud offering is now available through IBM's highly scalable, open and secure cloud.

1:04 pm Agilent Technologies to close nuclear magnetic resonance business; to take $72 mln restructuring charge in Q4, reaffirms Q4 guidance (A) : Co announced it is exiting its Nuclear Magnetic Resonance business. Agilent entered the NMR business in 2010, with the acquisition of Varian. Since then, the business has not met growth and profitability objectives.

Agilent will stop taking new NMR system orders immediately, but the company will continue to meet customer commitments for orders in progress and for ongoing support contracts.To cover the cost of exiting this business, Agilent will take an approximate $72 million restructuring charge in the fourth quarter. It expects a $20 million to $30 million decline in revenues in fiscal year 2015 due to the NMR business closure, but a positive impact of about $10 million in operating profit in FY15.Reaffirms guidance for Q4 (Oct), sees EPS of $0.87-0.91, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.89 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. and projects revenues to be negatively affected by currency at about $13 million, and lower NMR-related revenues by about $12 million.

12:39 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers


ETE (50.8 +8.15%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird; tgt $65.
NXPI (58.03 +7.66%): Semiconductors moving higher on the heels of strong Skyworks (SWKS) guidance (AVGO & ARMH also higher).DLPH (61.13 +4.85%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman; tgt raised to $82 from $78.

Large Cap Losers

TYC (40.01 -3.68%): Downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays.CI (88.32 -1.52%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne Agee.
GILD (99.33 -2.08%): Renewed concerns of Hep-C price competition from AbbVie (ABBV).

Mid Cap Gainers

SWKS (50.45 +11.32%): Raised Q4 guidance to $1.08 EPS from $1.01 and revenues to $718 mln from $680 mln; bullish analyst commentary from Topeka & MKM Partners.
DPZ (82.64 +9.14%): Beat Q3 earnings by $0.02, revs of $446.6 mln vs. $434.06 mln consensus.
PCRX (100.17 +6.36%): Announced additional data supporting safety of EXPAREL in peripheral nerve block.

Mid Cap Losers

AWI (46.49 -4.6%): Sees FY14 revs of $2.68-2.72 bln (lowered from $2.70-2.80 bln) vs $2.75 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
ENBL (21.62 -4.08%): Continued weakness in oil & gas companies as oil drops below $84 a barrel (FI & CQP also lower).
SIG (106.28 -1.49%): Announced that CEO Michael Barnes has resigned.

11:39 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (72) outpacing new highs (10) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: CCI, CMS, CUBE, DUK, ED, EIX, NU, SO, TE, XEL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ALB, ALLY, AMD, AN, APA, APO, BABA, BBEP, BEAV, BP, CBI, CCE, CHK, CIE, CNX, COG, CS, CVE, DAN, DAR, DNR, DVN, EPE, EQT, FAST, FMC, GPOR, GSK, HFC, HTZ, JCI, KATE, KBR, KING, KKR, KOG, KOS, LINE, LNCO, LPI, LVS, MCHP, MDRX, MPEL, MRC, MTW, MUR, NBG, NBL, NCR, NE, OAS, OI, OII, PBF, PE, PGH, PWE, PXD, QEP, RDC, RIG, RKT, RLGY, ROSE, SC, SM, SWN, TLM, TS, ZION, ZNGA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AGG, BND, HYD, IEF, IEI, MUB, TLT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, BJK, BNO, DBC, DIG, EWN, EWU, FXB, GREK, GSG, IEO, IGE, IXC, IYE, KOL, OIH, OIL, PBW, SEA, TAN, TBT, UGA, UHN, URA, USO, XES, XLE, XOP

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 40 stocks made 52 week highs and 387 stocks made 52 week lows.

Peregrine Semiconductor (PSMI) announces the UltraCMOS PE42722, a high-linearity RF switch that enables a dual upstream/downstream band architecture in cable customer premises equipment devices.

Texas Instruments (TXN) has shipped more than 22 billion units of copper wire bonding technology from its internal assembly sites and is now in production for major high reliability applications including automotive and industrial.

SUNE +4% (amends letter of credit facility to $800 mln USD for credit commitments and future increases)

SunEdison (SUNE) announced new zero white space solar module technology which can increase solar module power output by up to 15%, effectively decreasing the total system cost by up to 8%

MU +1.9% (Samsung Elect CEO downplayed fears of increased competition in chip space after co last week announced plans for new factory, which took down Micron last wk)

8:07 am Skyworks raises Q4 guidance (SWKS) : Co issues upside guidance for Q4 (Sep), raises EPS to $1.08 from $1.01, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.01 Capital IQ Consensus; raises Q4 (Sep) revs to $718 mln from $680 mln vs. $681.92 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"Skyworks' upwardly revised outlook demonstrates the broad-based strength of our business and our ability to capitalize on positive underlying market trends to connect everyone and everything, all the time," said David J. Aldrich, chairman and chief executive officer. "These multi-year technology trends are setting the stage for us to outperform the broader semiconductor industry in the December quarter and for the foreseeable future."

8:07 am SunPower changes time of third-quarter 2013 results conference call to 5:30 a.m. PT on Oct. 29, 2014 (SPWR) :

Due to conflicts in executives' schedules, SunPower will now hold its third-quarter financial results conference call on Wednesday, Oct. 29 at 5:30 a.m. Pacific Time.
7:31 am SunEdison amends letter of credit facility to $800 mln USD for credit commitments and future increases (SUNE) :

Co announced the Credit Facility's overall cap was increased from $400 million USD to $800 million USD. The amendment reflects the banking community's strong confidence in SunEdison and will allow additional banks to participate in the Credit Facility as SunEdison continues to grow its business.The Credit Facility was also amended to permit investments in (i) a subsidiary of the company formed for the purpose of owning subsidiaries that own and operate renewable energy systems, and (ii) wind, biomass, natural gas, hydroelectric, geothermal or other clean energy generation systems or hybrid energy generation systems.In a separate press release, the co announced new zero white space solar module technology.The technology can increase solar module power output by up to 15%, effectively decreasing the total system cost by up to 8%.Trina Solar Limited (TSL) announced that its high-efficiency Honey solar module has set a new world record for peak power output for P-type monocrystalline silicon PV modules, as independently certified by TUV Rheinland.

Tech Stocks

The major indices started with a bang on Tuesday, but ended with a thud in what has become a familiar inclination to sell into strength.

The early rally was forged on a belief that the scope of recent losses left the market in a good position to put together a nice recovery rally. Things looked good in that respect during the morning when the Dow, Nasdaq, S&P 500, and Russell 2000 were up 143, 68, 24, and 26 points, respectively, at their highs. They would all see their gains cut back considerably. For example, the Dow closed down six points.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.3%) got things turned around a bit thanks to a bargain-hunting bid in the semiconductor group.

The turnaround effort in that space was juiced by Skyworks Solutions (SWKS 48.91, +3.59), which raised its fiscal fourth quarter EPS guidance to $1.08 from $1.01, touting the broad-based strength in its business and the ability to leverage technology trends to outperform the industry in the December quarter and for the foreseeable future.

Skyworks is an Apple (AAPL 98.75, -1.06) supplier, so its upbeat view helped related peers like Avago Technologies (AVGO 72.02, +2.98), RF Micro Devices (RFMD 9.50, +0.34), Qualcomm (QCOM 71.86, +1.15), and NXP Semiconductors (NXPI 56.58, +2.68) outperform. Apple, however, did not go along for the ride. It succumbed to further profit-taking interest and acted as a negative influence on both the sector and the broader market.

Separately, Intel (INTC 32.14, +0.67) was a sector leader ahead of its earnings report after the close. Its strength and that of many other semiconductor-related stocks had the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up as much as 3.7% at its high on Tuesday. Like the broader market, though, it rolled over and concluded Tuesday's session with a solid, albeit reduced, 1.9% gain.

The weight of Apple made the sector's final standing look pretty pedestrian, yet a closer look reveals that more than two-thirds of the sector's 66 components ended the day higher.

Outside of the semiconductor stocks, leading names like Cisco (CSCO 23.06, +0.13), Facebook (FB 73.59, +0.60), Google (GOOG 537.94, +4.73), Mastercard (MA 71.00, +1.22), Microsoft (MSFT 43.73, +0.08), NetApp (NTAP 38.53, +0.31), and Oracle (ORCL 38.46, +0.23) lent the sector some added support.

Some of the news items involving companies in the technology sector on Tuesday included the following:

EMC Corp. (EMC 27.61, +0.07) acquired Cloudscaling, a cloud-computing startup. Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the situation, said the purchase price was less than $50 million.

Microsoft (MSFT 43.73, +0.08) said it reached one million registrants for the Windows 10 insider program.

Jack Dorsey of Square shot down rumors that eBay's (EBAY 50.59, +0.13) PayPal unit is looking at Square as a possible acquisition candidate.

Agilent (A 51.79, -1.00) said it will take a fourth quarter restructuring charge of $72 million to close its nuclear magnetic resonance business. The company reaffirmed its fourth quarter EPS guidance of $0.87 to $0.91 and warned that revenues will be negatively affected by about $13 million due to currency impact.

IBM (IBM 183.80, +0.28) announced that SAP (SAP 68.61, +0.36) selected it as a premier strategic provider of Cloud infrastructure services for its business critical applications

A few ratings changes of note included Bank of America/Merrill Lynch downgrading Corning (GLW 17.57, -0.07) to Neutral from Buy and UBS starting Alibaba Group (BABA 84.95, -0.17) with a Buy rating and $100 price target.

Postscript: After the close, Intel posted a profit of $0.66 per share that was a penny ahead of expectations on a 7.9% jump in revenue to $14.55 billion. The company's revenue guidance range for the fourth quarter is $14.2 billion to $15.2 billion, the midpoint of which is above analysts' current expectations, and it expects gross margins to be 64%, plus or minus a couple of points. In a CNBC interview following the report, Intel's CFO said it is not seeing a chip slowdown.

Shares of INTC were up 1.7% in after-hours action as of this posting.