From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Despite some encouraging economic data, stocks had a listless session and made another lackluster finish. Nonetheless, the major indices managed to eke out a fractional gain, which means that the Dow has finished higher seven straight times.
There weren't any individual leaders for the broader market this session, but retailers (+0.7%) did garner support following better-than-expected earnings and an upside forecast from Dollar Tree (DLTR 50.13, +2.23) and Williams-Sonoma (WSM 17.21, +1.74). Home improvement retailers (+1.4%) also gained, but their strength was owed to an encouraging new home sales report.
Annualized new home sales for July hit 433,000 units, which is well above the 390,000 that had been expected. What's more, the 9.6% month-over-month increase for July is the sharpest rise since 2005. That helped bring inventory down to a 7.5 month supply from an 8.5 month supply.
The better-than-expected new home sales report brought about a broad-based buying effort that took stocks to their best levels of the session. However, gains were capped as buyers seemed unwilling to chase stocks higher. That left the major indices to drift lower.
With participants sitting on the sidelines the rest of the day's news items didn't have much of an impact on the overall market. As such, participants were essentially unimpressed by news that durable goods orders made their sharpest increase in two years by spiking 4.9% in July. Economists had called for a 3.0% increase. Though the increase exceeded expectations, the results were generally the result of the Cash for Clunkers program. Excluding autos, durable goods orders increased 0.8%, which was largely in-line with expectations.
Stocks did drift to afternoon lows following news that an auction of 5-year Treasuries produced a high yield of roughly 2.49% and a bid-to-cover ratio of approximately 2.5. A lack of conviction behind the selling effort enabled the stock market to make its way back to neutral territory.
The lack of interest on the part of participants was also made evident by the lack of trading volume this session. Hardly 1 billion shares traded hands on the NYSE.DJ30 +4.23 NASDAQ +0.20 NQ100 -0.2% R2K +0.1% SP400 -0.1% SP500 +0.12 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1392/2.08 bln/1262 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1429/1.05 bln/1561
4:19PM Kulicke & Soffa CEO re-establishes rule 10b5-1 stock trading plan; may sell up to 660,000 shares of K&S common stock over a one year period beginning in Nov 2009 (KLIC) 5.38 -0.02 :
4:06PM Sigma Designs reports EPS in-line, revs in-line (SIGM) 17.15 +0.50 : Reports Q2 (Jul) earnings of $0.28 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the First Call consensus of $0.28; revenues fell 11.9% year/year to $51.3 mln vs the $51.5 mln consensus. SIGM reports Q2 gross margins of 45.3% vs 48.2% consensus. Co says, "We feel that our primary markets have shown continued stability in the face of a difficult economy and we are continuing to place heavy efforts on bolstering sales as well as expanding the breadth of our market opportunities. The IPTV market has remained relatively flat during this year and we remain confident that it will start to demonstrate growth by the end of the year. We are also pursuing design activity in the cable industry and helping to drive the transition to Tru2way IP cable solutions, deployments of which could substantially increase our addressable market. We are continuing to pursue consumer opportunities on multiple fronts, including Blu-ray players, digital media adapters and home entertainment connectivity devices. Finally, we have begun to pursue strategic relationships in the set-top box market with our Z-wave brand of wireless home control solutions."
7:03AM Canadian Solar obtained development rights for a 500 MW project in China (CSIQ) 14.93 : Co announces it obtained rights to design, install, operate, and maintain a 500 MW solar power plant system. Under a letter of intent with the Administration Committee of Baotou National Rare Earth Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, the solar power plant will be located in CPT. The project is subject to a feasibility study and government approvals and is divided into three phases. The first phase, expected to run from September 2009 to December 2011, calls for the installation of a 100 MW PV system. The second and third phases each call for the installation of 200 MW PV systems. There are no binding commitments until the feasibility study is completed and approvals are obtained.
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