From Briefing.com: 4:25 pm : Both stocks and commodities spent the entire session trading with considerable weakness as a broad-based selling effort took hold following a steep sell-off in China's Shanghai Composite Index.
The Shanghai Composite dropped 6.7% on Monday to hit a three-month closing low and log its second worst monthly performance in 15 years amid valuation concerns and fears that tighter lending in China will impede the flow of investment funds. Investors and traders responded to the selling effort by sending many of the major global averages lower. In turn, the Dow Jones World Index lost 0.8%.
The major U.S. indices managed to trim some of their losses into the close, though. The late lift came as consumer staples stocks garnered enough support to finish with a 0.3% gain, the only one seen among the major sectors in the S&P 500.
Health care stocks finished just 0.2% lower and financials limited their loss to 0.4% after being down nearly 2% in the early going. The financial sector's rebound came amid buying in diversified bank stocks (+0.8%), even though Reuters reported that a highly regarded analyst expects U.S. bank earnings to remain dismal this year. However, the report indicated that regional banks (-0.8%) would be the ones to continue booking losses into 2010.
Weakness among stocks bled into commodities pits and sent oil prices down 3.9% to $69.92 per barrel. Meanwhile, gold prices lost 0.5% to settle at $953.50 per ounce. In a broader measure of the weakness surrounding commodities, the CRB Commodity Index dropped 1.6%.
The decline among basic commodities and weakness in the equity market left materials stocks and energy stocks to suffer some of the worst losses in the broader market. They dropped a respective 1.4% and 1.8%. BJ Services (BJS 16.06, +0.63) was one of the few energy holdings to garner support, but that was only because Baker Hughes (BHI 34.45, -3.64) announced it will pay cash and stock to acquire the smaller oil services company in a transaction valued at roughly $5.5 billion.
Disney (DIS 26.04, -0.80) announced that it will make an acquisition of its own. The broadcasting and entertainment company will take over Marvel Entertainment (MVL 48.37, +9.72) for $30 per share in cash and approximately 0.745 shares of DIS.
Outside of the M&A news, there weren't many corporate headlines for participants to digest. Such will likely be the cast tomorrow since there aren't any major companies scheduled to announce their quarterly results prior to Tuesday's opening bell. However, ISM manufacturing data for August, construction spending data for July, and pending home sales data for July are likely to provide participants with direction.
Vehicle sales data are also expected to be released tomorrow, although Ford (F 7.60 -0.13) already stated that its U.S. auto sales for August were up year-over-year earlier. The specific number of sales has yet to be released, but many believe that the results were driven by the one-time incentives of the Cash for Clunkers program.
Trading volume climbed above its 50-day moving average by coming in near 1.4 billion shares on the NYSE. That's the first non options-expiration session in which trading volume surpassed the moving average mark since early August.DJ30 -47.92 NASDAQ -19.71 NQ100 -1.1% R2K -1.3% SP400 -1.3% SP500 -8.31 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 749/2.29 bln/1938 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 795/1.38 bln/2205
9:15AM Tower Semicon: TAEJIN selects Tower Semiconductor's power management process (TSEM) 1.20 : TAEJIN Technology, a supplier of linear and switching regulators to a wide variety of consumer and mobile applications, today announced it has selected Tower Semiconductor, a global specialty foundry, to manufacture its low power, high efficiency voltage regulator ICs. Tower was chosen for its advanced power management platform to enable TAEJIN to quickly address the needs of the multi-billion dollar voltage regulators market which, according to iSuppli is expected to grow from $5 billion in 2009 to approximately $7 billion in 2013.
8:42AM Marvell's communications and application processors selected for China Mobile open mobile system phones (MRVL) 15.36 : Co announces that its communications and application processors were selected for the new line of handsets launched as part of China Mobile's (CHL) Open Mobile System. China Mobile, the world's largest mobile phone operator by number of subscribers, introduced the phones in Beijing earlier today.
8:26AM Global chip sales increase 5.3% month-on-month : Worldwide sales of semiconductors in July were $18.2 billion, an increase of 5.3% from June 2009 when sales were $17.2 billion, the Semiconductor Industry Association reported today. SIA noted that the year-on-year rate of decline has moderated as the year has progressed. The first six months of 2009 saw an average monthly year-on-year decline of approximately 25%, while July 2009 sales were 18.2% lower than July 2008. All monthly sales numbers represent a three-month moving average of global semiconductor sales. "The fifth-consecutive month of sequential increases in semiconductor sales reflects improving demand in the consumer sector," said SIA President George Scalise. "Sales of consumer products such as netbook PCs and cell phones are supporting the modest recovery in demand that is now under way. Purchases of Information Technology products by the enterprise sector continue to be tempered by caution and longer replacement cycles. There is also evidence of a return to seasonal industry patterns," Scalise concluded.
4:07AM LDK Solar partners with Susian City on PV projects (LDK) 9.24 : Co announces that it has entered into an agreement with Suqian City of Jiangsu Province for the development of PV power projects. According to the agreement, LDK Solar will develop PV power projects in buildings, plants and integration systems, totaling up to 300 MW by 2015. The terms, including financing, design and specific location of each of the projects, will require a feasibility study as well as final approval from relevant governmental departments prior to initiation.
09:44 am Intel target raised to $24 at Deutsche Bank following raised guidance: . Deutsche Bank raises their INTC tgt to $24 from $22 following the co's raised 3Q09 rev guidance Friday which firm believes reflects healthier endmarket demand for PCs and is well beyond simple inventory refill. Although macro-economic headwinds persist firm believes MPU supply is tight, with firm more concerned with potential shortages than excess supply. Slower supply growth should continue to support margins and ASPs. Firm notes its 2010E operating profit is still 20% below 2005 levels suggesting there is further room for growth.
09:55 am Sun Microsystems (JAVA)
Sun Microsystems (JAVA 9.31, -0.03) reported earnings late Friday which were slightly worse than Wall Street estimates.
The company reported a fiscal fourth quarter loss of $0.20 per share, which was $0.01 worse than the First Call consensus of a loss of $0.19 per share.
Revenue declined 30.6% year-over-year to $2.63 billion, but managed to beat consensus estimates of $2.37 billion.
Sun is being acquired by Oracle (ORCL 21.98, -0.18) for $7 billion, a transaction that recently won U.S. antitrust approval; European antitrust approval is expected soon.
AI
Market Data 
Markets 
