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From Briefing,com 4:10 pm : The stock market began the first full week of 2015 on a cautious note. The S&P 500 lost 1.8% while the Russell 2000 (-1.3%) outperformed.

Stocks began sliding at the sound of the opening bell amid weakness in Europe that was brought on by renewed fears of a potential Greek exit from the eurozone. With the January 25 Greek snap elections fast approaching, voices out of Germany have tried to calm investors, but those calls have fallen on deaf ears so far. Over the weekend, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that a Greek exit from the eurozone would be manageable, but the comments did not stop the euro from falling below the 1.1900 level against the dollar immediately after the foreign exchange market opened on Sunday evening. The single currency was able to rebound into the 1.1940 area by Monday afternoon, but markets across Europe ended the day broadly lower.

Interestingly, the dollar rallied against the euro, but surrendered almost 100 pips to the yen (119.60), suggesting a sense of caution was present among foreign exchange traders. Treasuries also benefitted from safe-haven demand that sent the benchmark 10-yr yield lower by seven basis points to 2.04%.

As for stocks, there is no denying that today's selling produced notable losses for many influential sectors, but it is worth pointing out that the retreat unfolded over the course of the session and did not have a panicky feel of investors running for the exits. That being said, the return of global macroeconomic concerns was enough for participants to reduce their risk exposure, leaving the S&P 500 up 2.4% from its mid-December low.

All ten sectors finished in the red with energy (-4.0%) spending the entire session at the bottom of the leaderboard. The growth-sensitive group endured aggressive selling in crude oil that caused the commodity to dip below the $50.00/bbl level for the first time since April 2009. The energy component settled lower by 5.3% at $50.03/bbl and continued inching down in electronic trade.

Broadly speaking, the continued crash in oil prices has not been viewed as a positive due to the magnitude of the move. Instead, the market's consciousness is allowing for the possibility that there could be some latent financial, or economic, risk in the plummeting price of oil and the commensurate slippage in copper prices, which have fallen roughly 53% and 16%, respectively, from their highs last summer.

Like energy, four other cyclical sectors ended the day behind the broader market while technology (-1.8%) settled in-line with the S&P 500. Even transport stocks that would be expected to rally on cheaper oil struggled to keep pace. The Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 2.7% to narrow its gain from the December low to 1.3%.

Elsewhere, the four countercyclical sectors finished ahead of the broader market, but they could not stay out of the red. The health care sector (-0.6%) did make an intraday appearance in positive territory, but could not build on that short-lived gain. Gilead Sciences (GILD 96.78, +1.88) spiked 2.0% after an intraday report revealed that CVS Health (CVS 94.16, -0.94) will give preferred status to a pair of Gilead's drugs. Shares of GILD contributed to the outperformance of the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 305.85, -0.49), which shed 0.2%.

Among other movers of note, Morgan Stanley (MS 37.49, -1.22) fell 3.2% after announcing that one of its employees has been terminated after stealing partial account information of about 10 percent of clients of the Wealth Management department. The broader financial sector lost 2.1%.

Today's slide caused participants to increase their hedges, evidenced by a 13.0% spike in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 20.10, +2.24).

Participation was just ahead of average as 823 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Tomorrow, Factory Orders for November (Briefing.com consensus -0.4%) and the ISM Services Index for December (consensus 58.5) will both be released at 10:00 ET.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.8% YTD
S&P 500 -1.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.9% YTD

DJ30 -331.34 NASDAQ -74.24 SP500 -37.62 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 804/1.66 bln/2125 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 724/822.6 mln/2435 3:40 pm :

Oil prices got slammed today with WTI crude oil breaking below $50/barrel
Feb crude oil closed the day $2.54 lower at $50.03/barrel, after momentarily, breaking below the $50/barrel level
Feb natural gas fell 11 cents to $2.88/MMBtu
Precious metals held strong despite strength in dollar index
Feb gold rallied $17.50 to $1203.60/oz, while Mar silver rallied $0.46 to $16.23/oz

Tech stocks headed lower on Monday, while still slightly outperforming the broader market to begin the first full trading week of the New Year with the S&P Information Technology Index closing down 1.77% versus the S&P 500's 1.83% loss. It's worth noting that only two stocks in the S&P Information Tech Index posted gains, CA Incorporated (CA 30.78 +0.09) and Paychex (PAYX 46.32 +0.08). On the other hand, First Solar (FSLR 41.83 -2.72), Netapp (NTAP 40.05 -1.41), Applied Materials (AMAT 24.16 -0.80), Apple (AAPL 106.25 -3.08), and Mastercard (MA 83.27 -2.41) were the biggest decliners on the day.

From a broader perspective, all industry groups in the space closed in the red, led by Technology Hardware, Storage & Peripherals, which posted a 2.6% loss. Although it still closed in the red, the Software industry group outperformed all others, falling just 1.1%. The rest of the groups lost at least 1.3%.

Perhaps the most interesting news story on the day was Gartner's estimate that worldwide tablet sales will reach 233 million units in 2015, an 8% increase from 2014. Gartner noted that the collapse of the tablet market in 2014 was alarming, in the last two years global sales of tablets were growing in double-digits. Additionally, Gartner believes the steep drop can be explained by several factors, including an extended lifetime for tablets, and the lack of innovation in hardware which deters consumers from upgrading. (Related stocks: Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG 513.87 -10.94), Lenovo (LNVGY 25.53 -0.57), Microsoft (MSFT 46.33 -0.44))

In acquisition news, Lexmark (LXK 40.67 -0.14) announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Claron Technology for approximately $37 million in cash. The Toronto-based Claron Technology is a provider of medical image viewing, distribution, sharing and collaboration software technology.

Open Text (OTEX 57.16 -0.96) also announced a definitive agreement on Monday for the acquisition of Informative Graphics Corp (IGC 0.64 +0.02). Graphics Corp., is a developer of viewing, annotation, redaction and publishing commercial software. As an OpenText partner for more than a decade, IGC technologies will be further integrated into the ECM product portfolio and extended into other OpenText Suites. The deal strengthens the company's capabilities for secure access to any content, on any device, on premises and in the cloud.

Analysts continued to flood the wire with updated ratings on Monday as many returned from their extended holiday vacation. Here are some of the more noteworthy analyst actions with commentary:

F5 Networks (FFIV 129.76 -0.57) was upgraded to Outperform at Oppenheimer, its price target set at $160.

Salesforce.com (CRM 58.17 -1.07) was initiated with a Buy at Mizuho, its price target set at $70.

Intel (INTC 35.95 -0.41) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at MKM Partners, which raised its price target to $45 from $40.

Arista Networks (ANET 63.80 +1.12) was upgraded to Buy at Gabelli & Co from Hold Buy.

Cognizant Tech(CTSH 52.34 -0.33) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman, which raised its price target to $64 from $55.

Lastly, Synnex (SNX 73.28 -3.31) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James.
4:15 pm Ultra Clean Holdings announces James Scholhamer as new CEO effective Monday, January 19, 2015 (UCTT) : The co's current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Clarence Granger, has decided to retire as an officer of the company, effective Monday, January 19th. Mr. Granger will remain UCT's non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors. Mr. Scholhamer has had an eight-year tenure at Applied Materials (AMAT), and has most recently been Corporate Vice President and General Manager, leading the Equipment Products Group and Display Services Group of Applied Materials' Global Service Division.


4:02 pm Qualcomm announces strategic collaboration with Novartis (NVS) to optimize global clinical trials (QCOM) : Co announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Life, has been selected by Novartis, a global pharmaceutical leader, as a global digital health collaborator for its Trials of The Future program. Qualcomm Life's 2net Platform will serve as a global connectivity platform for collecting and aggregating medical device data during clinical trials to improve the convenience and speed of capturing study participant data and test results to ultimately gain more trial efficiencies and connected experiences for participants.

Co also announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Atheros, and LIFX, a leader in smart lighting, have collaborated to deliver a turnkey Wi-Fi based smart lighting platform that can accelerate the development of connected lighting.

12:51 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

BSX (13.9 +5.11%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
ZMH (116.45 +3.43%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.
GILD (96.71 +1.9%): Seeing headlines that CVS Health (CVS) giving preferred status to co's HCV drugs Harvoni and Sovaldi.

Large Cap Losers

CLR (34.35 -11.45%): Oil & Gas companies under heavy pressure as WTI Crude drops 4.5% on the day after earlier dropping under $50/bbl for first time since May of 2009 (NBL, APC also notable decliners as well)
F (14.77 -3.84%): Co reported sales of 220,671 vehicles in December, up 1% YoY; Downgraded earlier to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup.
SNY (43.74 -3.91%): Downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.

Mid Cap Gainers

KITE (65.81 +8.58%): Entered into a strategic research collaboration and license agreement with Amgen (AMGN) to develop and commercialize the next generation of novel Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cell immunotherapies; KITE to receive upfront $60 mln payment.
ISIS (66.54 +8.07%): Entered into a global collaboration with Janssen Biotech (JNJ unit) to discover and develop antisense drugs to treat autoimmune disorders of the gastrointestinal tract; co will receive $35 mln in upfront payments.
GEVA (101.77 +8.1%): Announced new pipeline programs and other company progress; Beyond GACI, SBC-105 may have broader medical utility in other rare disorders; also heard its price target was raised to $124 from $114 at Nomura; Buy rating maintained.

Mid Cap Losers

NBG (1.67 -9.08%): Weakness in Greek stocks as the main Greece indices all drop over 5.5% on the day.
DDD (30.84 -4.87%): Announced that it acquired U.K. based 3D printer maker botObjects, terms not disclosed; price target lowered to $42 at Stifel.
XYL (36.04 -5.36%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel on FX concerns/valuation.

11:47 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (98) outpacing new highs (88) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAVL, ACC, AVID, AVIV, AYN, BCC, BFK, BLUE, BSET, BYM, CBL, CDR, CEMP, CFI, CFN, CIVI, CMRX, CNV, COR, CQB, DMF, DOC, EDR, EGRX, ELS, EMI, ESPR, ESRT, ESSA, FOLD, GBAB, GNCMA, GSH, HALL, HFFC, HOFT, HTA, IIM, IMKTA, IQI, ISIS, JFC, KITE, LH, LOAN, MACK, MCA, MFL, MHD, MHN, MLVF, MMV, MRNS, MUE, MVF, NAD, NBB, NBD, NEA, NEV, NEWR, NHI, NIO, NPI, NPM, NQS, NXP, NXR, PNI, PPS, PYN, PZZA, QLGC, RDUS, RESN, REXR, RPAI, RVSB, SFST, SIX, SONC, SSS, TCX, TRK, VBLT, VCV, VMO, ZMH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACWX, ADRU, AEG, AKO.B, ATU, AWAY, AWX, BALT, BBVA, BGR, BORN, BTU, CBD, CCU, CEE, CEL, CFNB, CH, CHT, CLD, CMRE, COMT, CRC, CS, CVEO, CX, DB, DCM, DSWL, E, ELON, EQT, FCLF, GF, GLOW, GNBC, GNI, HABT, HIE, HSBC, IBTX, ICD, IDN, IGD, IGOV, IID, ING, ISHG, JST, KB, KF, KND, KOF, LOR, LYG, MFG, MGT, MN, MT, MTSL, MXC, MXE, NBG, NTT, OIBR, OIBR.C, OXM, PBR.A, PKX, PRXI, PT, PTNR, PWE, REE, RICE, SALT, SAN, SB, SCHN, SHG, SNY, SODA, SQNS, STRI, SWN, SWZ, TEF, TOPS, TOT, TS, TWMC, UBS, UPL, VRTA, VSCI, WBAI, WOR, XGTI

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: TLT, UUP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BJK, BNO, BWX, DBC, EIS, EPOL, EWI, EWP, EWQ, EWU, EWY, FXA, FXB, FXC, FXE, FXF, GREK, GSG, JJC, OIL, SLX, TBT, UGA, UHN, USO

8:31 am O2Micro announces reduction in current worldwide employee base by ~80 employees; expects to lower overall operating expenses by ~$3.5-4.5 mln through 2015 (OIIM) : The strategy is aimed to better utilize its proprietary battery management technologies for industrial applications, including its precision battery gas gauge products. OIIM will provide additional details related to the financial impact of this announcement when it reports Q4 and fiscal year ending Dec 31, 2014, financial results, which is tentatively scheduled for Feb 4, 2015.