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From Briefing.com: 4:13 pm SolarEdge Technologies beats by $0.03, misses on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus (SEDG) :

Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.32 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.29; revenues fell 10.7% year/year to $111.5 mln vs the $114.91 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
GAAP gross margin reached 35.0% (Guidance 30-32%)

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $110-120 mln vs. $109.31 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Sees Gross Margin in the range of 31-33%.

4:10 pm Agilent beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides AprQ EPS in-line, revs in-line; reaffirms FY17 EPS guidance, guides FY17 revs in-line (A) :
Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.53 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.49 and above prior guidance of $0.48-0.50; revenues rose 3.8% year/year to $1.07 bln vs the $1.05 bln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $1.04-1.06 bln.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2 (Apr), sees EPS of $0.47-0.49, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.49 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.04-1.06 bln vs. $1.05 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues guidance for FY17, reaffirms EPS of $2.10-2.16, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of $4.33-4.35 bln vs. $4.34 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Our strong revenue results were driven by a return to growth in our Chemical & Energy business and higher-than-expected China growth. Overall, we are confident in the company's prospects, and we are raising our full-year core revenue growth expectations."

4:15 pm : Afternoon optimism outweighed morning caution on Tuesday as investors pushed the major averages to fresh record highs. The Dow (+0.5%) led the advance while the S&P 500 (+0.4%) and the the Nasdaq (+0.3%) closed just a tick behind.

Markets were in wait-and-see mode leading up to Fed Chair Yellen's semiannual monetary policy report. Ms. Yellen did not raise any eyebrows in her prepared statement, but she did provide some interesting insight during the Q&A session that followed.

Specifically, Senator Toomey asked Chair Yellen why the Fed didn't really bump up its growth projections at all at the December meeting when many other bodies, like the IMF, have bumped up their 2017 growth prospects based on a belief that the implementation of fiscal stimulus in the U.S. will have a positive effect on growth. Ms. Yellen responded by saying that most of her colleagues refrained from doing so because they wanted greater clarity on the timing, scope, and composition of any fiscal changes before making assumptions about the growth outlook.

That's an important revelation because the Fed, without the benefit of knowing what fiscal changes will look like, still projected three rate hikes in 2017 at the December meeting. That forecast, then, is based on its view of how the economy will evolve without -- at the Fed Chair's admission -- the benefit of any fiscal stimulus.

The fed funds future market still projects the next FOMC rate hike to occur in June with an implied probability of 70.7% (from 65.4% yesterday). The implied probability of a March rate hike has also ticked up following today's monetary policy report, but it remains relatively low at 17.7% (from 13.3% yesterday).

Treasuries retreated following the Fed Chair's testimony, while the stock market waited until after the Q&A session to make its expedition into the green. Financials (+1.2%) led the equity market's advance, profiting from the uptick in interest rates. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished its trading session four basis points higher at 2.47%.

The health care space (+0.7%) also finished Tuesday solidly higher following a couple of broken large-cap mergers. Aetna (AET 125.81, +3.76) and Humana (HUM 205.97, -0.73) announced a mutual agreement to terminate their proposed merger this morning. Then, in the afternoon session, Cigna (CI 146.68, +0.83) confirmed the termination of its agreement and plan of merger with Anthem (ANTM 163.32, -0.20). Additionally, CI announced that it has filed a lawsuit against ANTM.

Consumer discretionary (+0.6%) also outpaced the benchmark index, while technology (+0.3%) underperformed the broader market. The consumer discretionary sector received a nice bump from General Motors (GM 37.24, +1.72) after French automaker Peugeot confirmed that it is currently in talks with GM regarding a potential acquisition of GM's Opel brand. Shares of General Motors jumped 4.8% in the wake of the news.

Lightly-weighted sectors populated the bottom of today's leaderboard with utilities (-0.7%), real estate (-0.5%), and telecom services (-0.1%) all closing Tuesday lower. Rate-sensitive utilities' last place finish was secured by the uptick in interest rates following Fed Chair Yellen's testimony.

Today's economic data was limited to January PPI:

January producer prices increased 0.6%, which is above the Briefing.com consensus of 0.3%. The prior month's reading was revised to 0.2% (from 0.3%).
Core producer prices increased 0.4% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%. The prior month's reading was revised to 0.1% (from 0.2%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the headline shock for January has been overshadowed by the more restrained year-over-year readings. On a year-over-year basis, the index for final demand is up 1.6%, unchanged from December. The index for final demand, excluding food and energy prices, is up 1.2% year-over-year versus 1.6% for the 12-months ending in December.

Wednesday will see a slew of economic reports including MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, January CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), January Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%), and February Empire Manufacturing (Briefing.com consensus 7.0) at 8:30 ET, January Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 75.5%) at 9:15 ET, December Business Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) and February NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 68) at 10:00 ET, and December Net Long-Term TIC Flows at 16:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.4% YTD
S&P 500 +4.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.9% YTD

NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1597/1.74 bln/1221 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1529/948.1 mln/1392

3:30 pm :

Crude oil closed pit trading near the midpoint of today's session high ahead of this afternoon's API release
Mar crude oil futures rose $0.26 (+0.5%) to $53.21/barrel
Upcoming data reminders:
API data will be released today at 4:30 pm ET.
EIA petroleum data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
Natural gas futures extended yesterday's move below the $3.00/MMBtu support zone
Mar natural gas closed $0.05 lower (-1.7%) at $2.90/MMBtu
EIA natural gas storage data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, silver futures ended pit trading just shy of a 3-month high despite notable strength in the dollar index
April gold ended today's session down $0.50 (-0.1%) to $1225.30/oz
Mar silver closed today's session $0.08 higher (+0.5%) at $17.90/oz
The dollar index was +0.3% around the 101.24 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.01% around the 88.63 level

Another record close was precluded by a soft start in the broader market today. Action began lower this morning, but turned higher after testimony Fed Chair Janet Yellen gave to the Senate Banking Committee. For the most part, Chair Yellen's testimony did not raise any eyebrows, but Ms. Yellen did provide some interesting insight into the Fed's growth forecast for the U.S.

All three major US indices ended at record highs, led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which added 92.25 points (+0.45%) to 20504.41. The S&P 500 gained 9.33 points (+0.40%) today to 2337.58, and the Nasdaq Composite rounded out the trio up 18.62 points (+0.32%) to 5782.57.

Economic data today included January producer prices which increased 0.6% compared to the prior month's reading which was revised to 0.2% (from 0.3%). Additionally, investors learned that core producer prices increased 0.4% compared to last month's reading which was revised to 0.1% (from 0.2%).

Also opening the session in the red, the Technology (XLK 51.72, +0.17 +0.33%) sector reversed into positive territory lockstep with the broader market. Component FLIR Systems (FLIR 34.15, -2.25 -6.18%) was the worst performing name today after the company reported mixed Q4 results and guided FY17 revenues ahead of market expectations on top of dividend, share repurchase and CEO news. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLF +1.16%, XLV +0.79%, XLY +0.57%, XLE +0.35%, IYZ +0.12%, XLI +0.05%, XLP +0.02%, XLB -0.02%, XLRE -0.51%, XLU -0.73%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (873.98, +2.48 +0.28%) sector, trading eked out another session of all-time highs. Components XRX +3.03%, GLW +1.91%, FSLR +1.77%, AAPL +1.29%, GPN +1.27%, ACN +1.19%, PYPL +1.09% and CSCO +1.03% helped push the sector into positive territory.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Amazon Web Services, an Amazon.com company (AMZN 836.39, -0.14 -0.02%), announced Amazon Chime.

Toshiba (TOSBF 2.05, -0.01 -0.49%) postponed its earnings release due to write-down in Nuclear unit. TOSBF also notified investors that the company's CEO will step down.

GigPeak (GIG 3.05, +0.34 +12.55%) to be acquired by Integrated Device Technology (IDTI 24.88, +0.15 +0.61%) for $3.08 per share, or about $250 million.

Windstream (WIN 7.13, -0.07 -0.97%) received all state and federal regulatory approvals required for its merger with EarthLink Holdings (ELNK 5.72, -0.07 -1.21%). The parties now expect the transaction to close in 1Q17.

Oracle's (ORCL 41.10, +0.01 +0.02) HCM Cloud Suite was selected by Ford (F 12.65, +0.09 +0.72%) to streamline digital view of HR product and services.

Oracle (ORCL) is expanding its Internet of Things portfolio with four new cloud solutions to help businesses fully utilize the benefits of digital supply chains.

FLIR Systems' (FLIR) CEO Andrew Teich to retire. The Board will conduct a search for a new CEO with the help of an executive search firm. The company also approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.15 per share on FLIR common stock, an increase of 25% over the previous quarterly dividend of $0.12 per share. Further, management also announced that a new share repurchase program that authorizes the repurchase of up to 15 million shares over the next two years.

IBM (IBM 180.13, +0.77 +0.43%) and ServiceNow (NOW 92.89, +1.15 +1.25%) announced a collaboration. The parties agreed to a multi-year, strategic partnership to offer NOW's cloud-based service automation platform and IBM products and services.

In reaction to quarterly results:

T-Mobile US (TMUS 61.60, +0.70 +1.15%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.45 and $10.18 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company expects to add between 2.4 and 3.4 million branded postpaid net additions. While Net income is not available on a forward looking basis, the Company is targeting between $10.4 and $10.8 billion in Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes spectrum gains and includes leasing revenues of $0.8 to $0.9 billion (the impact from Data Stash is expected to be immaterial). Cash capital expenditures guidance is $4.8 to $5.1 billion, excluding capitalized interest. Net cash provided by operating activities three-year CAGR is expected to be between 15% and 18%. Free Cash Flow three-year CAGR is expected to be between 45% and 48%.

IPG Photonics (IPGP 117.02, +0.94 +0.81%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.39 and $280.1 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees in-line EPS of $1.10-1.25 on better than expected revenues of $245-260 million.

FLIR Systems (FLIR) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.48 on better than expected revenues of $474.74 million. FLIR also guided FY17 EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $1.81-1.91 and $1.78-1.83 billion, respectively.

AU Optronics (AUO 3.65, -0.10 -2.67%) reported better than expected Q4 earnings of NT$0.93 per share on revenues which also beat market expectations at NT$91.85 billion.

Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD 41.61, +1.59 +3.97%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of net of breakeven and in-line revenues of $109 million. The company also guided Q1 and FY17 revenues slightly below market expectations of $109-111 million and $475-485 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: IOTS HIVE A CALX DIOD HOLI HUBS LXFT SEDG TTGT VDSI/ADI ANGI CRNT CBB GRPN PLAB SHOP SONS WIX

Analyst actions:

NTAP was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray,
Z was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
TERP was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at UBS;
FLIR and GIG were downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
SCG was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Mizuho;
CYBR was initiated with a Buy at Stifel,
SYNC was initiated with a Buy at Lake Street