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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 06-Mar-15Dow -278.94 at 17856.78, Nasdaq -55.44 at 4927.37, S&P -29.78 at 2071.26

The major averages ended the week on a broadly lower note with the Dow (-1.5%) and S&P 500 (-1.4%) surrendering the bulk of their 2015 gains. The two indices narrowed their respective quarter-to-date gains to 0.2% and 0.6% while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.1%) outperformed and remains higher by 4.0% since the end of 2014.

Equity indices succumbed to selling pressure that began during pre-market action after the February Nonfarm Payrolls report came in ahead of expectations. According to the report, 295,000 payrolls were added last month while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 240,000. The Unemployment Rate fell to 5.5% from 5.7%, but that resulted from shrinking labor force participation. Also of note, hourly earnings increased just 0.1% after a 0.5% increase in January (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%).

In addition to pressuring equities, the better than expected headline number was met with aggressive selling in the Treasury market, sending the 10-yr yield higher by 12 basis points to 2.24%. Altogether, today's congruent weakness in stocks and bonds suggests participants believe this report increased the likelihood that the Fed will hike rates as early as June. That being said, the anemic wage growth provides some ammunition for the other side of the rate hike argument.

What the FOMC is thinking-or what we should say is what the market thinks the FOMC is thinking-is that there is no way wage growth isn't going to accelerate with the type of payroll gains we have seen over the last 12 months. Accordingly, it would be prudent to raise the fed funds rate sooner rather than later (i.e. at or close to the middle of the year). That sentiment was echoed by Richmond Fed President and FOMC voting member, Jeffrey Lacker, who voiced his support for raising rates as early as June.

Given that narrative, the greenback rallied, sending the Dollar Index (97.66, +1.28) to its highest level since September 2003. Conversely, that strength weighed on commodities like gold (1164.20/ozt, -32.00) and crude oil (49.62/bbl, -1.14) with crude notching its low after the latest Baker Hughes rig count revealed the 13th consecutive weekly decline in the number of operational oil and gas rigs in the U.S. (down 75 to 1192).

On a related note, the energy sector (-1.7%) settled behind the other cyclical groups, but it was the countercyclical side that faced the most aggressive selling. The utilities sector lost 3.1% to widen its 2015 decline to 8.8% while consumer staples (-1.9%), health care (-1.9%), and telecom services (-1.5%) settled a bit closer to the broader market.

Meanwhile, most cyclical sectors ended near the S&P 500 while financials (-0.8%), consumer discretionary (-1.2%), and technology (-1.2%) outperformed slightly. The financial sector began the day with a solid gain, but succumbed to the overall market pressure. The early strength followed last night's news that all 31 major banks cleared the Fed's baseline for required capital levels.

As for the top-weighted technology sector, the group spent the day ahead of the broader market thanks to the shares of Apple (AAPL 126.60, +0.19). The largest stock by weight ended flat, but was up more than 2.0% after the Wall Street Journal reported the stock will replace AT&T (T 33.48, -0.52) in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Thursday, March 19.

Apple's daylong retreat from its early high proved that the Friday session focused more on the broad macro environment rather than moves among individual stocks.

For the first time this week, NYSE floor volume crossed the 750 million mark as more than 883 million shares changed hands.

Economic data reported this morning was limited to Nonfarm Payrolls and Trade Balance:

Nonfarm payrolls added 295,000 jobs in February after adding a downwardly revised 239,000 (from 257,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 240,000
It is difficult to label this report as good. Headline payrolls topped expectation, which is obviously a good result; however, average hourly earnings increased marginally (0.1%) after growing by 0.5% in January
Lackluster wage growth combined with the improvement in payrolls led to a 0.4% increase in aggregate wages. To put that in perspective, even after the downward revision to the January payroll numbers, aggregate income increased a much stronger 0.7% last month
Since consumption growth and economic growth in general follow the trend in income, the February employment results were decidedly worse than January even though this month's headline payroll number far exceeded both expectations and the prior level.
The unemployment rate fell to 5.5% in February from 5.7% in January while the consensus expected a drop to 5.6%
The decline was completely due to another exodus in labor market participation that dropped the participation rate to 62.8% from 62.9% in January
The U.S. trade deficit declined to $41.80 billion in January from a downwardly revised $45.60 billion (from $46.60 billion) while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to $42.00 billion
The goods deficit declined by $3.40 billion to $61.60 billion from $65.00 billion. The services surplus increased to $19.90 billion from $19.40 billion, a gain of $0.50 billion

Monday's session will be free of economic data.

Week in Review: Sliding From Record Highs

The first trading day of March was a good day for the stock market and a lousy day for the Treasury market. The former rallied, featuring a return above 5,000 for the Nasdaq Composite and new record closes for both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500. The latter, meanwhile, languished and perhaps breathed some added life into the stock market on rebalancing efforts. To be fair, both the stock and bond markets had reason to advance today. The People's Bank of China cut its key lending rate by 25 basis points to 5.35% and each piece of economic data out of the U.S. fell short of consensus estimates. While the rout in the Treasury market was unfolding, a rally in the stock market was playing out, suggesting perhaps that a rotational move out of Treasuries and into stocks was helping to support things.

The stock market endured a broad-based retreat on Tuesday that caused the S&P 500 (-0.5%) to surrender the bulk of its advance from Monday. The benchmark index settled ahead of the Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) with eight sectors registering losses. All in all, it is worth pointing out that the pullback occurred after the S&P 500 rallied nearly 3.5% in just three weeks, suggesting the retreat resulted from profit taking after a big run. Equity indices began the day amid pressure from a few influential sectors like health care (-0.9%), technology (-0.8%), and industrials (-0.7%). The three sectors lagged throughout the day while the remaining sectors finished closer to their flat lines.

Equity indices registered their second consecutive retreat on Wednesday with the S&P 500 losing 0.4%. The benchmark index managed to cut its loss in half by the closing bell while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) outperformed. For the second day in a row, the market opened amid broad pressure, but heavily-weighted health care and technology sectors hit their lows during the opening hour and climbed off those lows into the afternoon. The health care sector (+0.4%) registered a modest gain while technology (-0.3%) finished ahead of most other cyclical sectors.

The market ended Thursday on a modestly higher note with the Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%) settling in the lead while the S&P 500 (+0.1%) ended just above its flat line. In a way, the Thursday session fit right in with recent affairs as equity indices maintained narrow ranges amid light volume. The S&P 500 spent the day inside a nine-point range while NYSE floor volume totaled fewer than 675 million shares (50-day average 766 million). Six of ten sectors registered gains with three of four countercyclical groups ending ahead of the broader market. To that point, consumer staples (+0.3%), health care (+0.4%), and utilities (+0.8%) spent the day ahead of the S&P while telecom services (-0.1%) lagged.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18132.70 17856.78 -275.92 -1.5 0.2
Nasdaq 4963.53 4927.37 -36.16 -0.7 4.0
S&P 500 2104.50 2071.26 -33.24 -1.6 0.6
Russell 2000 1233.37 1217.52 -15.85 -1.3 1.1

The first week of March ended on a rather emphatic down note, with indices falling at least 1.1% across the board on Friday. Although Nonfarm payrolls topped Street expectations, average hourly earnings grew marginally (+0.1%), and ultimately overshadowed the increase in employment.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-1.15%) outperformed the S&P 500 Index (-1.4%), benefiting a bit from the announcement that Apple (AAPL 126.60, +0.19, +0.2%) will be joining the Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing AT&T (T 33.48, -0.52, -1.5%). Not surprisingly, there were only three other stocks in the sector that posted gains in the wake of a broad market sell-off, including: Ebay (EBAY 59.87, +0.76, +1.3%), Juniper Networks (JNPR 23.57, +0.42, +1.8%), and Qualcomm (QCOM 71.51, +0.58, +0.8%).

Notable news items from sector components were limited and included the following:



Apple (AAPL): Will replace AT&T (T) in the Dow Jones Industrial Average after the close of trading on Wednesday, March 18. The change will be effective with the opening of trading on Thursday, March 19. The index change was prompted by Visa (V 269.34, -4.79, -1.8%) 4:1 stock split which is scheduled to be effective at the same time. The post-split adjusted lower price of Visa will reduce the weighting of the Information Technology sector in the index.Elsewhere in the technology space:

Perceptron (PRCP 11.60, -0.04, -0.3%): Announces the launch of SMART3D, its laser scanning system. The SMART3D System automatically provides 3D polygonised models for reverse engineering, 3D printing or graphical web content. It also can be used for the verification of production parts against nominal part geometry data.

Verizon Wireless (VZ 48.29, -0.63, -1.3%): Tweets that Samsung (SSNLF) Galaxy S6 pre orders will start April 1st

Maxpoint Interactive (MXPT 9.76): opened for trading at $11 after pricing IPO at $11.50
Analyst Action:

Marvell Technologies (MRVL 16.56, +0.05, +0.3%): upgraded to Positive from Neutral at Susquehanne; price target raised to $20 from $14

Methode Electronics (MEI 42.69, -0.30, -0.7%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig

HallumScanSource (SCSC 36.60, -0.28, -0.8%): price target set to $43.90 at FinTrust Advisors; Buy

Exar (EXAR 10.71, -0.01, -0.1%): price target set to $14 at ROTH Capital; Buy

HealthEquity (HQY 22.19, +0.69, +3.2%): price target set to $28 at Leerink Partners; Outperform

Proofpoint (PFPT 55.39, -1.50, -2.6%): price target set to $65 at Piper Jaffray; Overweight

Barracuda Networks (CUDA 38.45, -0.16, -0.4%): price target set to $44 at Piper Jaffray; Overweight

Cyber-Ark Software (CYBR 59.78, -3.09, -4.9%): price target set to $54 at Piper Jaffray; Neutral

NXP Semi (NXPI 99.48, -0.19, -0.2%): price target raised to $120 from $95 at Susquehanna; Positive

Google (GOOG 567.69 -7.65, -1.3%): price target raised to $682 from $629 at Citigroup; Buy

Cirrus Logic (CRUS 32.78, +0.54, +1.7%): price target raised to $37.50 from $35 at Northland Capital; Outperform

SunEdison (SUNE 22.64, -0.53, -2.3%): price target raised to $33 from $28 at RBC Capital; Outperform

Finisar (FNSR 22.23, +1.90, +9.4%): price target raised to $23 from $19 at RBC Capital; Outperform

Plantronics (PLT 53.26, -0.59, -1.1%): price target raised to $60 from $55 at ROTH Capital; Buy

SunEdison (SUNE) and Solar Grid Storage LLC announced that SunEdison has acquired the energy storage project origination team, project pipeline, and subject to customary consents and assignments, four operating storage projects from Solar Grid Storage. SunEdison now offers battery storage solutions to complement solar and wind projects worldwide, providing solutions that can benefit utilities, municipalities, businesses, and consumers alike.

6:36 am Methode Electronics beats by $0.18, misses on revs; raises FY15 EPS above consensus, reaffirms FY15 revs guidance (MEI) : Reports Q3 (Jan) earnings of $0.68 per share, $0.18 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.50; revenues rose 8.5% year/year to $206 mln vs the $209.71 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $2.50-2.60 from $2.20-2.30 vs. $2.27 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; reaffirms FY15 revs of $870-885 mln vs. $884.12 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Consolidated gross margins as a percentage of sales improved to 25.5 percent in the Fiscal 2015 first nine months compared to 20.8 percent in the Fiscal 2014 period.

6:29 am Canadian Solar misses by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 and FY15 (CSIQ) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.28 per share, $0.06 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.34; revenues rose 84% year/year to $956.2 mln vs the $953.94 mln consensus.

Total solar module shipments in the fourth quarter of 2014 were 1,125 MW, with 897 MW recognized in revenue, compared to 770 MW recognized in the third quarter of 2014 and 621 MW in the fourth quarter of 2013. Co issues guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $725-775 vs. $713.18 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Expects Q1 total module shipments to be in the range of ~1,000 MW to 1,030MW, including ~55 MW of shipments to the Company's utility-scale solar projects that will not be recognized into first quarter 2015 revenue. Co issues guidance for FY15, sees FY15 revs of $2.8-3.0 bln vs. $3.44 bln Capital IQ Consensus; Absent the planned change in the Company's energy business model from a build-to-sell to a build and operate model, revenue for 2015 would be ~$1.0 billion to $1.1 billion higher.Sees total module shipments to be in the range of ~4.0 GW to 4.3 GW, including 3,300MW to 3,500 MW of third-party module sales, 235 MW to 275 WW of project and EPC sales, and 460 MW to 490 MW of shipments to projects which will be held on the balance sheet pending the launch of a YieldCo vehicle. At the end of February of 2015, the Company had a pipeline of late -stage, utility-scale solar projects totaling ~1.4 GW DC. Canadian Solar's late-stage, utility-scale solar project pipeline is expected to increase by ~1.0 GW DC to 2.4GW DC with the Recurrent acquisition.