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From Briefing.com from last night: 4:26PM Brooks Automation misses by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (BRKS) 11.06 +0.06 : Reports Q2 (Mar) loss of $0.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the First Call consensus of ($0.03); revenues fell 24.3% year/year to $147.6 mln vs the $141.9 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of ($0.12)-$0.00 vs. $0.05 consensus; sees Q3 revs of $125-140 mln vs. $143.80 mln consensus.

4:22PM NVIDIA misses by $0.02, reports revs in-line (NVDA) 21.95 -0.06 : Reports Q1 (Apr) earnings of $0.36 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the First Call consensus of $0.38; revenues rose 36.6% year/year to $1.15 bln vs the $1.15 bln consensus. "The growth of GPUs continues to outpace the PC market. We shipped 42 percent more GPUs this quarter compared to the same period a year ago, resulting in our best first quarter ever... This is the era of visual computing. With a few hundred million GeForce GPUs in the market, developers can now confidently create applications with dazzling graphics. Amazing applications with beautiful graphics are showing up on the Web constantly, driving even faster adoption of GPUs. We expect this positive feedback loop to continue to drive our growth."

4:30 pm : Trading in the stock market was largely range-bound Thursday. The S&P 500 bounced between the unchanged mark and 1400, which has been a key level among technical traders, but still finished the session with decent gains.

Positive sales data from a handful of key retailers lent some initial support to market participants, but the data was largely dismissed after the opening bell.

Wal-Mart (WMT 57.16, +0.33), Costco (COST 71.20, -0.88), BJ's Wholesale (BJ 37.73, -1.21), and Target (TGT 52.34, -1.10) all reported positive same-store sales growth for April. Specifically, Wal-Mart reported a 3.2% increase, excluding fuel sales, Costco and BJ's announced an 8.0% and 17.8% increase, respectively. Target noted that its 3.1% increase was slightly below its expectations.

Several noteworthy apparel and accessories retailers posted declining same-store sales for April. Nordstrom (JWN 34.67, -0.82), Limited Brands (LTD 17.93, +0.31), and Gap (GPS 17.84, -0.40) all reported a downturn.

News Corp (NWS.A 19.68, +0.48) offered a positive update upon announcing third quarter results after yesterday's close. The media giant reported earnings of $0.91 per share for the quarter, up from $0.29 per share the year before. News Corp's latest results were helped by a $1.7 billion gain related to a stock and asset exchange with Liberty Media.

Jobless claims for the week ending May 3 totaled 365,000. The consensus estimate called for 370,000 claims. Jobless claims for the prior week were revised slightly higher to 383,000 from 380,000. Notably, the four-week average has increased to 367,000 from 364,500, but remains below levels typically associated with a recession.

Wholesale inventories for March declined 0.1%, which is less than the 0.5% increase that economists forecast. February's inventories increased 0.9%, down from the 1.1% increase initially reported.

The materials sector (+2.3%) was the best performing economic sector in the S&P 500. Particular strength was exhibited by Alcoa (AA 39.65, +1.56) and Freeport-McMoRan (FCX 118.07, +3.71).

The energy sector (+1.9%) also finished with a solid gain after crude set an all-time intraday high of $124.61 per barrel. Oil companies Exxon Mobil (XOM 89.93, +1.11) and Chevron (CVX 97.44, +2.16) were among the leaders.

Financial companies were down noticeably. Bank of America (BAC 37.33, -0.67) and AIG (AIG 44.15, -0.93) were the primary laggards.

Thursday's choppy trading prompted buying in government Treasuries. The benchmark 10-year Treasury Note traded 27 ticks higher, lowering its yield to 3.78%.DJ30 +52.43 NASDAQ +12.75 SP500 +5.11 NASDAQ Dec/Adv/Vol 1307/1482/2.09 bln NYSE Dec/Adv/Vol 1295/1802/1.21 bln

1:00PM Marvell confirms it reached settlement with SEC regarding historic stock option granting practices (MRVL) 13.31 +0.14 : Co confirms that it has entered into a settlement with the SEC in connection with the previously disclosed investigation into the co's historic stock option granting practices. Without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC's complaint, the co agreed to settle the charges by consenting to a permanent injunction against any future violations of various provisions of the federal securities laws. The co will also pay a civil penalty of $10 mln in connection with the settlement. In a related agreement, Weili Dai also entered into a settlement with the SEC. Dai consented to a permanent injunction against any future violations of various provisions of the federal securities laws, agreed not to serve as a director or officer of a public company for a period of five years, and will pay a civil penalty of $500k.

10:06AM Diodes reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q2 revs above consensus (DIOD) 27.26 -0.28 : As mentioned at 10:02, DIOD reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.35 per share, in-line with the First Call consensus of $0.35; revenues rose 3.9% year/year to $95.6 mln vs the $96.1 mln consensus. Co issued upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $100-106 mln vs. $99.95 mln consensus. In addition, co expects gross margin to be down slightly due a stronger China currency affecting their manufacturing costs, but gross profit will increase 4-9%.

8:02AM UTStarcom awarded contract from United Telecoms Ltd. for broadband network triple play solution (UTSI) 3.36 : Co announces that it has been awarded a contract by United Telecoms Limited to deliver Internet Protocol TV, bandwidth on demand and Voice over IP services in the state of Goa. Upon completion, the Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Network/fiber technology network will be the first specifically designed to deliver e-Governance and triple play solutions in India. The end-to-end network will provide more than 100,000 subscribers in Goa with high-speed access to several new services including broadcast-quality IPTV and e-Governance applications.

7:39AM Rudolph Tech receives multiple system order for AXi 940 Inspection Module (RTEC) 9.73 : Co announces that it has received multiple system orders for its recently-introduced AXi 940 macro defect inspection module from a major chip manufacturer based in Singapore. This order for three systems reflects the success of an evaluation for advanced photolithography and CMP applications. Two systems shipped in April, with the third scheduled for June.

6:17AM TTM Tech announces a $125 mln convertible notes offering pursuant to its effective shelf registration (TTMI) 14.22 :

3:57AM United Microelectronics reports net sales for April 2008 (UMC) 3.32 : Co reports net sales for April 2008 increased 4.79% year/year to NT$8.52 bln; net sales increased 0.27% from March 2208.

3:55AM Advanced Semiconductor Engineering announces monthly net revenues (ASX) 5.37 : Co reports April 2008 net revenues increased 13.2% y/y to NT$8.39 bln; net revenues were flat compared to March 2008.

12:43AM Emcore misses by $0.04, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs in-line; guides FY08 revs above consensus (EMKR) 7.37 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 worse than the First Call consensus of ($0.05); revenues rose 42.2% year/year to $56.3 mln vs the $56.4 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $77.0-80.0 mln vs. $76.37 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for FY08, sees FY08 revs of $280-295 mln vs. $270.02 mln consensus. Co expects net profitability by the September quarter.