From Briefing.com: Broader market action today ended modestly lower. All three major US indices closed the session (-0.32%). The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower 55.99 points to 17702.22, the S&P 500 was lower by 6.72 points to 2075.00, and the Nasdaq Composite rounded out the bunch down 16.22 points to 5067.02. The markets did manage to eke out of the red briefly between noon and 1 p.m., but the gains would not hold and action returned to the downside. Market data today was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which fell 1.3% to follow last week's 0.8% decline.
Among Technology (XLK 43.60, -0.02 -0.05%) names closed just below flat lines as a spike to the downside at the market close took the sector into negative territory. Action was mostly in positive territory today, as names like XRX +6.55%, MSI +2.46%, QCOM +1.11%, TEL +1.02%, ADBE +1.03%, FB +1.02%, TXN +1.00%, VRSN +0.99%, GOOG +0.97% took action higher. Other sector finished XLU +0.87%, XLI +0.13%, XLB +0.09%, XLP -0.14%, XLF -0.33%, IYZ -0.54%, XLY -0.59%, XLV -0.99%, XLE -2.11%.
Specifically, Networking (IGN 37.63, +0.29 +0.78%) names were higher on the session as component Lumentum (LITE 17.95, +1.41 +8.52%) reported better than expected Q3 results. Other names in the subsector which posted gains on the session included INFN +2.54%, IDCC +0.93%, UBNT +0.90%, FNSR +0.83%, HRS +0.51%, FFIV +0.46%.
In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (734.63, -0.27 -0.04%), action played out on Wednesday much like the broader Technology sector. A small spike to the downside at the close took the sector into negative territory as most of the trading action up to that point was positive. Names which helped the sector, in spite of the last-second dip lower included RHT +0.82%, LLTC +0.73%, CRM +0.59%, INTU +0.52%, CA +0.50%, TSS +0.39%, ADP +0.26%, MSFT +0.26%.
Other notable news items among sector components:
SAP AG (SAP 79.34, +1.04 +1.33%) announced the availability of the SAP Vehicles Network solution in Europe.
Super Micro Computer (SMCI 26.18, -3.07 -10.50%) announced the release the industry's broadest range of Server Building Block Solutions supporting the new Intel (INTC 32.86, -0.35 -1.05%) Xeon processor E3-1200 v5 family (formerly codenamed Skylake-S) and Intel Xeon processor D-1500.
Western Union (WU 19.28, -0.14 -0.72%) announced the appointment of Elizabeth G. Chambers as Chief Strategy and Product Officer.
Electronic Arts (EA 71.30, +0.47 +0.66%) to release EA SPORTS UFC 2 in Spring 2016, EA says no updates to prior FY16 guidance.
Avago Tech (AVGO 119.95, +0.09 +0.08%) and Broadcom (BRCM 51.91, +0.46 +0.89%) shareholders approved merger.
Skyworks (SWKS 79.10, -1.27 -1.58%) announced new $400 million stock repurchase program.
Elsewhere in the technology space:
Trimble Navigation (TRMB 22.46, -0.12 -0.53%) acquired privately held Telog Instruments, Inc. for undisclosed sum.
Checkpoint Systems (CKP 6.39, +0.01 +0.16%) appointed James Lucania as Chief Financial Officer.
Turlock Irrigation District and SunPower (SPWR 25.62, -0.59 -2.25%) announced a 20-year PPA under which TID will buy clean renewable solar power from SPWR. To serve the agreement, SPWR is starting construction this month on a 54-megawatt solar photovoltaic power plant at the company's Rosamond Solar site in Kern County, which is expected to be operational by the end of 2016.
Evolving Systems (EVOL 5.72, +0.40 +7.52%) reported another wireless operator in Africa has selected to use its Dynamic SIM Allocation solution.
Marathon Patent Group's (MARA 1.48, -0.05 -3.27%) subsidiary, Selene Communication Technologies, entered into a settlement and license agreement with Trend Micro (TMICY 37.25, -0.37 -0.97%).
Broadridge Financial (BR 56.94, -0.08 -0.14%) acquired QED Financial Systems. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Hughes Network Systems, LLC, a subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (SATS 41.56, -0.55 -1.31%), and Telesat announced a 15-year agreement for Ka-band capacity on Telesat's new Telstar 19 VANTAGE satellite, planned for launch in early 2018. The agreement calls for Telesat to deliver Ka-band capacity of 31 Gbps on T19V covering many countries in South America, which Co will utilize to expand its broadband satellite services for consumers.
Nokia (NOK 7.31, +0.09 +1.25%) converted 750 million of convertible bond into Nokia shares.
Super Micro Computer (SMCI) filed to delay its Form 10-Q. The company has determined that certain contracts for product extended warranties were recorded as revenue in prior periods instead of being deferred and amortized over the contractual period.
Electro Scientific's (ESIO 5.04, -0.13 -2.51%) Chief Accounting officer Kerry Mustoe to retire effective December 18.
Sigma Designs (SIGM 9.73, +0.17 +1.78%) acquired privately-held Bretelon for about $22 million in cash.
Lumentum (LITE) in addition to reporting quarterly results, filed to delay its Form 10-Q.
NTT Group (NTT 39.06, +0.28 +0.72%) and Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PHI) agreed on a collaboration partnership on November 5 to provide Nexcenter solutions in the Philippines and promote cross-selling.
Lattice Semi (LSCC 5.07, -0.02 -0.39%) appointed Glen Hawk as COO.
In reaction to quarterly results:
Hackett Group (HCKT 18.28, +2.35 +14.75%) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations at (pro forma) EPS of $0.20 on revenues which rose 11.3% YoY to $67.2 million.
Alarm.com (ALRM 16.57, +2.00 +13.73%) reported Q3 EPS which was better than expected at $0.14 on revenues which also came in ahead of expectations at $54 million. In addition, ALRM raised FY15 EPS and revenue guidance to $0.20-0.21 from $0.13-0.14 and $197.7-200.1 million from $193.9-195.3 million, respectively.
CGI Group (GIB 40.61, +1.78 +4.58%) reported EPS and revenues ahead of expectations at CC$0.82 and CC$2.59 billion, respectively. At the end of September, the backlog stood at $20.7 billion, a $2.5 billion increase from last year.
Amdocs (DOX 55.56, -4.54 -7.55%) reported Q4 EPS which beat expectations at $0.84 on revenues which were mostly in-line at $927.8 million. DOX also guided Q1 EPS in the range of $0.82-0.88 and revenues of $905-945 million, both worse than expected.
Phoenix New Media Limited (FENG 4.69, -0.21 -4.29%) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which were better than expected at $0.08 and $61.4 million, respectively. The company issued guidance for Q4 revenues between 368 million-388 million (-5.7% to -0.6% sequentially versus Q3 revenues).
Lumentum (LITE) reported Q3 EPS which was better than expected at $0.26 on revenues which came in about in-line at $212.6 million. The company also issued in-line guidance for the Q4 period of EPS in the range of $0.26-0.30 on revenues of $212-222 million.
Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: DTRM, NTES/CLFD, PMTS, HIMX, MMS, NTWK, OTIV, RSTI
Analyst actions:
SCON was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Ladenburg Thalmann,
TSL was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley;
ORCL was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
SNDK was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Bernstein,
EMC was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
TISA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at The Benchmark Company,
FENG was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie
4:00 pm Atmel: Elliott Management increases stake in Dialog Semi (DLGNF), reiterations its intention to vote against Dialog's pending acquisition of Atmel (ATML) :
4:05 pm : The stock market spent the Wednesday session inside a narrow range before ending with a modest loss. The S&P 500 shed 0.3% while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) settled in line with the benchmark index after showing relative strength intraday.
Overall, the midweek affair was very quiet as the stock market bounced around its flat line while the bond market was closed for Veterans Day. The subdued activity was evidenced by below-average trading volume as fewer than 800 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.
Four sectors ended the day above their flat lines, but their gains were overshadowed by a significant decline in the energy sector (-1.9%) while other influential groups like health care (-0.9%), consumer discretionary (-0.5%), and financials (-0.2%) also struggled.
The energy sector marched lower throughout the day, pressured by a 2.9% drop in crude oil, which fell to $42.96/bbl, representing the lowest settlement since late August. Similar to crude, other commodities finished the day in negative territory despite modest dollar weakness that sent the Dollar Index (98.98, -0.31) lower by 0.3%. The greenback ended little changed against the euro despite morning news that indicated the European Central Bank will examine a possible extension of quantitative easing purchases to municipal bonds.
Elsewhere, the health care sector held its own in the early going, but slipped into the close with biotechnology showing comparable weakness. To that point, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 326.85, -5.11) lost 1.5% to end the day just above its 50-day moving average (325.61).
Also of note, the consumer discretionary sector struggled since the start with retailers largely responsible for the weakness after disappointing guidance from Macy's (M 40.44, -6.58) overshadowed better than expected earnings. Macy's tumbled 14.0% while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.62, -1.03) lost 2.3%.
Unlike the discretionary sector, the consumer staples space outperformed throughout the day with Roundy's (RNDY 3.57, +1.39) surging 63.8% after agreeing to be acquired by Kroger (KR 37.03, -0.24) for $3.60/share in cash, which represents a 65.0% premium to Tuesday's closing price.
Today's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which fell 1.3% to follow last week's 0.8% decline.
Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 269,000) will be released at 8:30 ET while September Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey and October Treasury Budget (consensus -$130.00 billion) will be reported at 10:00 ET and 14:00 ET, respectively.
Nasdaq Composite +7.0% YTD
S&P 500 +0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.1% YTD
DJ30 -55.99 NASDAQ -16.22 SP500 -6.72 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1018/1.55 bln/1815 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1304/784.6 mln/1740
3:40 pm :
Commodities ended the day lower today
Bloomberg Commodity Index is currently down 0.5%
Oil, nat gas, gold and silver futures all remain near today's lows
Dec crude finished the day -down 3% at $42.96/barrel, while Dec nat gas lost -3% as well to finish at $2.26/MMBtu
Copper ended unchanged at $2.22/lb
But in the precious metals market, Dec gold fell -0.3% to $1085/oz and Dec silver dropped -0.6% to $14.29/oz
11:36 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (174) outpacing new highs (126) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADP, AIZ, AKR, ALDW, AMH, AMRK, AMZN, AVOL, BDGE, BECN, BHLB, BNCN, BOCH, BRKL, CACB, CACI, CAJ, CASY, CBOE, CDR, CFNL, CHFC, CNO, CPS, CSBK, CUK, DCOM, DGICB, DMND, DSGX, ECT, EDUC, EFII, EFSC, EGBN, EGHT, ENLK, FBC, FCBC, FLTX, FLY, FNWB, FRBK, FRM, FULT, GE, GOOGL, GSBC, GWB, HCKT, HF, HOMB, HQY, HSII, HSKA, HTHT, IBCP, IBOC, ICE, IM, INDB, INGR, JAXB, KRNY, LGL, LKFN, LLL, LNCE, LXFT, MBWM, MDR, METR, MFSF, MHG, MLVF, MTN, NFBK, NQI, NWL, NXC, OCAT, OLBK, OME, OMI, OPB, ORI, OZRK, PAR, PAYX, PBA, PFBC, RIVR, RMAX, RNST, RVNC, SBGI, SFBS, SFNC, SGBK, SHEN, SHOR, SIFI, SIRI, SNA, SNV, SNX, SOCB, STWD, TCBK, TECD, TFSL, THFF, TMP, TTC, TTI, UHAL, V, VC, VOXX, WAFD, WAL, WFBI, WFD, WSFS, XRS, YDLE
Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACSF, ADM, ADUS, AHGP, AMDA, AMFW, AMTX, ARCW, ARLP, ATI, AZUR, BBL, BBOX, BFY, BID, BIOD, BOBE, BONT, BOOT, CC, CDI, CFX, CGG, CGIX, CHS, CLMS, CMLS, CNL, CNP, CPST, CREG, CROX, CVA, CVM, DAKP, DAR, DDC, DDD, DECK, DEST, DXYN, ECPG, EFF, EGLE, ELOS, ENBL, ENOC, ENSV, ENVA, EPIQ, ERA, ESMC, EVAR, EVDY, EVRI, FMI, FREE, FRPT, FTK, FUEL, GLBS, GNK, GNRT, GPS, GRH, GSI, HDNG, HIBB, IILG, IMN, IPI, JGW, JMLP, JSD, JWN, KMI, KONA, KSS, KTCC, KYN, M, MARA, MCUR, MDVX, MEMP, MIE, MNKD, MSB, MSLI, MTOR, NAZ, NDLS, NES, NETE, NFEC, NM, NML, NMM, NOR, NRX, NSH, NSL, NSPH, NTK, NWPX, ONTX, OXGN, OZM, PAA, PDVW, PEIX, PER, PERY, PRAA, PRGN, PRTY, QUAD, RCAP, RCKY, REE, REXI, RICE, RNET, ROKA, ROSG, ROYT, RPRX, RRMS, RTK, SB, SBLK, SBRA, SCTY, SEDG, SEMG, SGMS, SJT, SKUL, SLM, SMM, SMRT, SMT, SNTA, SRF, SSYS, STX, SUNE, SWIR, SXC, SXCL, SXCP, SYRX, TC, TDW, TERP, TEU, TINY, TK, TLYS, TWIN, UAE, UEIC, UPL, URBN, URG, UUUU, VGGL, VKTX, WDC, WILN, WLH, WRN, WTT, XGTI
ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none
ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DJP, PPLT, TIP
6:02 am Ascent Solar enters into two definitive agreements to raise $35 million from an accredited private investor (ASTI) :
Pursuant to the Agreements, the Company will issue up to $2.8 million of a principal amount of the Company's newly designated Series E 7% Convertible Preferred Stock, and enter into a Committed Equity LinePurchase Agreement with the Investor whereby the Company has the right to sell to Investor, and Investor is obligated to purchase from the Company, up to $32.2 million of the Company's common stock.
The Company issued 1,000 shares of Series E Preferred Stock to Investor in exchange for $1 million, and will issue an additional 500 shares of Series E Preferred Stock to Investor in exchange for $500,000.
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