From Briefing.com: Major averages ended Wednesday trade higher by S&P 500 +0.73%, Dow +0.69%, Nasdaq +0.44%. Normal market upticks were interrupted today by the FOMC Statement at 2 p.m. ET. Only the Nasdaq spent a brief moment in the red, immediately following the statement, then all major averages returned to normal positive trading.
Last night, Twitter (TWTR 31.24, -5.30 -14.50%), Citrix Systems (CTXS 75.27, +5.64 +8.10%), Yelp (YELP 25.06, -8.45 -25.22%), Mastercard (MA 96.73, +1.57 +1.65%) and United Micro (UMC 1.72, -0.03 -1.71%) reported earnings results. TWTR reported earnings of $0.07 per share on revenues rose 60.8% year/year to $502 mln. TWTR also saw Q2 MAUs of 316 million, Ad revenues of $452 million, and Data licensing revenues of $50 million. YELP was hit hard today and saw multiple analyst downgrades following Q2 results which were lackluster at best.
The S&P 500 information technology sector index (+0.68%) ended the session up, slightly underperforming the broader market, as the solar sector led the way (Guggenheim Solar ETF 36.24, +0.97 +2.75%). Notable sector advancers include: SPWR +10.05%, ENPH, +6.04%, CSIQ +5.71%, FSLR +4.98%, TSL +3.99%, SCTY +3.61%, JASO +3.37%.
The S&P 500 Information Technology (+0.68%) sector also finished higher on the day. Notable standouts include: CTXS +8.10%, FSLR +4.98%, TSS +4.58%, FISV +2.53%, ADP +2.18%, WU +2.15%, MSFT +2.10%, FB +1.78%.
Notable news items related to sector components:
Akamai Tech (AKAM 73.21, -0.44 -0.60%) reported earnings of $0.57 per share on revenues rose 13.6% year/year to $541 mln.
Juniper Networks (JNPR 27.48, -0.09 -0.33%) cut stake to 4.5% from 9.6% in amended 13D filing; Expressed support for management and Board.
Microsoft (MSFT 46.29, +0.95 +2.10%) Microsoft announces Windows 10 is now available in 190 countries as a free upgrade.
Box (BOX 16.47, +0.06 +0.37%) hired Paul Chapman as its new Chief Information Officer. Chapman was most recently the CIO of HP Software for Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ 30.30, +0.03 +0.10%).
Qualcomm's (QCOM 63.17, +0.07 +0.11%) CEO and CFO disclosed purchase of 23,915 shares combined at $62.34-63.31 worth about $1.5 mln (transaction dates 7/28).
Elsewhere in the tech space:
VimpelCom (VIP 5.94, +0.81 +15.79%) ticked higher in today's session on reports that VIP and Hutchison Whampoa (HUWHY) might merge Italy assets in the mobile sector.
Nippon Telegr (NTT 38.98, +1.24 +3.29%) announced that it signed an agreement recently to wholly acquire PT. Cyber CSF, a data center service provider headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Wave Systems (WAVX 0.13, -0.08 -39.10%) announced that its Board of Directors and Senior Management have initiated a global restructuring of the Company's business in conjunction with a review of Wave's options for raising capital and pursuing customer transactions and other strategic alternatives.
One Horizon (OHGI 2.07, -0.03 -1.43%) entered into a Dribble Out Agreement with Mr. Mark White. Mr. White was the Chief Executive Officer of the Company from November 2012 to July 2014 and he currently owns 5,415,011 shares of common stock of the Company, representing approximately 16.44% of our issued and outstanding shares on the date of the Agreement.
Analyst actions:
FireEye (FEYE 47.54, +1.85 +4.05%) was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer and a target of $58, Citrix Systems (CTXS 75.27, +5.64 +8.10%) was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird, Yelp (YELP 25.06, -8.45 -25.22%) was downgraded at Oppenheimer, Topeka Capital Markets, JMP Securities, BofA/Merrill, Morgan Stanley and Raymond James, Atmel (ATML 8.41, -0.14 -1.64%) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Dougherty & Company
Notable companies reporting earnings tonight/tomorrow morning:
DOX, ARRS, BKFS, BLKB, CAVM, CMPR, EQIX, FB, FARO, FICO, FISV, FORM, FORR, IMPR, NSIT, ISIL, IXYS, LRCX,LPSN, MANT, NCIT, NXPI, OTEX, PEGA, POWI, PTC, QUIK, ROG, RKUS, NOW, SSNC, SPRT, TER, WSTL, WDC/ACIW, ALU, ADP, CCMP, CEVA, CBR, CBB, DBD, ENTG, EXLS, IT, I, IDCC, IRDM, MMYT, MOBL, MWW, NTCT, NICE,NOK, OIIM, PRFT, SHOP, SSYS, TMUS, VG, YNDX
5:06 pm Teradyne beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (TER) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.53 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.45; revenues fell 2.4% year/year to $513 mln vs the $487.58 mln consensus.
Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.35-0.41 vs. $0.37 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $450-480 mln vs. $457.74 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Orders in the second quarter of 2015 were $529 million of which $395 million were in Semiconductor Test, $84 million in Wireless Test, $45 million in System Test, and $5 million in Industrial Automation.
4:21 pm Intersil reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (ISIL) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.16 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.16; revenues fell 10.4% year/year to $132.44 mln vs the $136.39 mln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.12-0.15 vs. $0.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $122-130 mln vs. $145.54 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
4:17 pm Altera announces a favorable US tax court opinion, with respect to its litigation with the IRS (ALTR) : Co announced that the United States Tax Court has issued a favorable opinion with respect to its litigation with the Internal Revenue Service filed with the Court in 2012. The litigation relates to the treatment of stock-based compensation expense in an inter-company cost-sharing arrangement with Altera's wholly owned subsidiary, Altera International.
The Court accepted Altera's position and concluded that the company is not liable for any tax or interest associated with the cost-sharing issue. Co currently expects to record, based upon its preliminary estimates, an aggregate favorable impact of $40 to $50 million to net income for fiscal years 2004 through 2007 for the reversal of previously recorded reserves related to the stock-based compensation cost-sharing issue.
4:16 pm Western Digital beats by $0.05, misses on revs -- guides on call (WDC) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $1.51 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.46; revenues fell 12.6% year/year to $3.19 bln vs the $3.26 bln consensus.
"I am satisfied with our execution and performance in the fourth fiscal quarter in light of the weak PC market."
4:15 pm Qorvo beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q3 below consensus (QRVO) :
Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $1.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.06; revenues rose 23.1% year/year to $673.6 mln vs the $665.46 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $1.05-1.15, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.28 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q3 revs of $690-710 mln vs. $741.52 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.4:09 pm FormFactor beats by $0.02, beats on revs (FORM) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.11 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues rose 9.6% year/year to $73.9 mln vs the $72.16 mln consensus.
4:08 pm Lam Research beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (LRCX) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $1.50 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.47; revenues rose 6.3% year/year to $1.48 bln vs the $1.46 bln consensus. Deferred revenue and profit balances at the end of June 2015 quarter increased to $518.1 million and $322.1 million, respectively, as compared to $485.2 million and $303.3 million at the end of the March 2015 quarter, respectively.
Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.60-1.80 vs. $1.39 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.525-1.675 bln vs. $1.42 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
4:10 pm : The stock market registered its second consecutive advance on Wednesday with the S&P 500 climbing 0.7% to extend its weekly gain to 1.4%. The benchmark index overtook its 100- (2,095) and 50-day moving averages (2,100) during morning action while the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.4%) struggled to keep pace with the broader market.
Equity indices began the day with slight gains after China's Shanghai Composite spiked 3.4% overnight, which improved risk tolerance among global investors. The Dow and S&P 500 rallied throughout the session while the Nasdaq hovered near its opening levels into the afternoon before setting new highs ahead of the close.
The tech-heavy index was pressured by biotechnology as iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 377.43, -5.41) lost 1.4% despite better than expected earnings from Gilead Sciences (GILD 115.71, +2.64). Shares of GILD spiked 2.3% while the broader health care sector (+0.2%) settled among the laggards. Similar to biotechnology, high-beta chipmakers lagged, but the PHLX Semiconductor Index was able to end the day higher by 0.1%. On the earnings front, Twitter (TWTR 31.24, -5.30) sank 14.5% after the company's bottom-line beat was overshadowed by cautious commentary regarding user growth outlook.
Although the technology sector (+0.7%) struggled in the early going, the top-weighted sector closed the gap during afternoon action, ending in-line with the broader market. Similarly, the materials sector (+0.7%) settled near the S&P 500 while the other four cyclical sectors displayed relative strength.
Most notably, the industrial sector spiked 1.2% with transport stocks fueling the move after C.H. Robinson (CHRW 69.85, +3.12) beat bottom-line estimates on light revenue. The stock surged 4.7% while the broader Dow Jones Transportation Average jumped 1.7% to extend this week's gain to 4.3%.
Elsewhere, the energy sector (+1.3%) settled ahead of industrials thanks to an intraday rally in crude oil that sent the energy component higher by 1.7% to $48.77/bbl. Also of note, Anadarko Petroleum (APC 76.28, +3.43) soared 4.7% after beating earnings expectations.
Today's advance in equities was accompanied by selling in the Treasury market that sent the 10-yr yield higher by three basis points to 2.28%. Treasuries spiked off their intraday lows after the latest policy statement from the FOMC called for more improvement in the labor market before raising rates. On a related note, the Dollar Index (97.16, +0.40) dipped immediately after the minutes crossed the wires, but rallied during the late afternoon at the expense of the euro (-0.8%), which slipped to 1.0980.
For the second day in a row, participation was ahead of average with more than 850 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.
Economic data released this morning was limited to the MBA Mortgage Index and Pending Home Sales:
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index rose 0.8% to follow last week's 0.1% uptick
Pending home sales for June fell 1.8% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.0%
Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 272,000) and the advance reading of Q2 GDP (consensus 2.5%) will be released at 8:30 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +7.9% YTD
S&P 500 +2.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.4% YTD
DJ30 +121.12 NASDAQ +22.53 SP500 +15.32 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1610/1.73 bln/1246 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2245/857.3 mln/834 3:40 pm :
FOMC provided some additional volatility in the commodities space this afternoon
The initial reaction was a lower dollar index and modestly higher precious metals, oil and copper
However, that quickly reversed as the dollar index surged higher
Sept crude oil finished the day +1.7% at $48.77/barrel, while in other energy, Sept nat gas rose 1.4% to $2.86/MMBtu
Aug gold rose back above the $1100/oz area post-FOMC, but ended the day -0.3% at $1092.70/oz
Sept silver gained 0.5% to $14.71/oz, while Sept copper ended unchanged at $2.41/lb
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