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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 13-Nov-09An early rally in equities this week helped the major averages regain more of their late-October declines. The rally was large-cap driven, as the Dow was the first index to reach a new 52-week high on Monday, followed by the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 on Wednesday. The larger composites trailed, particularly the Russell 2000, which only showed a modest gain on the week.

All ten sectors that make up the S&P 500 advanced. Materials (+4.2%) led the way, followed by IT (+3.3%) and Consumer Discretionary (+3.2%). Energy (+0.2%) trailed.

The biggest catalyst for equity markets remains the U.S. dollar.

The market achieved most of this week's gain on Monday, the same day the U.S. Dollar Index lost 1.1% and made a new 52-week low. It eventually touched 74.774 on Wednesday, it's lowest level since August of last year.

One reason for the currency's weakness on Monday was last weekend's G-20 meeting, where leaders pledged to keep aid flowing until the recovery was assured. The weakness helped the Commodity sector -- gold kept setting fresh 52-week highs this week, eventually touching $1,123.40 on Thursday. Banks stocks were also strong as the G-20 also opposed the utility of a tax on financial transactions as a way to dampen risky behavior.

The remainder of the week was slower, as third quarter earnings season has winded down and the economic calendar was very thin. But investors remained fixated on the dollar, and the major averages continued to move in an inverse manner to it.

There was another round of longer term Treasury auctions, selling $81 billion in 3-, 10- and 30-year Notes and Bonds. Demand remained strong for the most part, showing the U.S. government continues to be able to borrow money at very low rates.

Looking ahead to next week, we expect the dollar to remain in focus until the market finds some new catalysts. The economic calendar will pick up, however, with Retail Sales on Monday, Industrial Production on Tuesday, CPI and Housing Starts/Building Permits on Wednesday and Existing Home Sales on Friday.

 
 Index      Started Week  Ended Week  Change % Change  YTD % 
 DJIA	     10023.42	  10270.47   247.05    2.5   17.0 
 Nasdaq	      2112.44	   2167.88    55.44    2.6   37.5 
 S&P 500	      1069.30	   1093.48    24.18    2.3   21.1 
 Russell 2000   580.35	    586.28     5.93    1.0   17.4

9:26AM Silicon Storage to be acquired for $2.10 per share (SSTI) 1.86 : Co announces that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to be acquired by Technology Resource Holdings, a Prophet Equity LP-controlled entity, as well as by members of SST's management team. Prophet Equity will acquire all of the outstanding common stock of the company for $2.10 per share, except for shares held by Bing Yeh, SSTI's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Yaw Wen Hu, SSTI's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and member of the Board of Directors, who have agreed to exchange all of their shares of SST common stock for shares of capital stock of the resulting privately held co.

9:02AM FormFactor says in ITC's Final Determination, certain of its asserted patent claims were found valid, but not infringed, and other asserted patent claims were found invalid (FORM) 17.33 : Co announces that the ITC issued a final determination in the investigation of probe card manufacturers Phicom and Micronics Japan, Investigation No. 337-TA-621. In the Final Determination, certain of FormFactor's asserted patent claims were found valid, but not infringed, and other asserted patent claims were found invalid. The ITC has terminated the investigation without issuing an exclusionary order against any products. The ITC released only a three-page notice and indicated that the full Final Determination would be issued later. The co will carefully evaluate the Final Determination when it becomes available and assess further proceedings, including any potential appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the pending district court patent infringement litigations against Phicom and Micronics, which were stayed after initiation of the ITC investigation and include other FormFactor patents not at issue before the ITC. The co remains committed to protecting its intellectual property rights, and preventing the unauthorized use of its intellectual property.

7:49AM Agilent beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus (A) 27.43 : Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.32 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the First Call consensus of $0.23; revenues fell 21.2% year/year to $1.17 bln vs the $1.11 bln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.28-0.32, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.27 consensus. "While it seems clear that we are past the worst of the global downturn, the pace of recovery is expected to be slow and to vary considerably by market and geography. Our restructuring actions to achieve $525 mln of annualized savings by mid-2010 are on track and, in recognition of the progress we are making, we have restored full pay around the world effective Nov. 1... We expect our fiscal first quarter revenues to be roughly flat with one year ago (1Q09 revs were $1.166 bln vs the 1Q10 consensus of $1.09 bln)." Electronic Measurement revenues were down 29 percent, with some signs of a turnaround in general products but continued weakness in communications products. Orders were down a less severe 18 percent from one year ago and were up a stronger than seasonal 18 percent from Q3. Bio-analytical segment revenues were 9 percent below last year, with applied markets down 10 percent and life science off 7 percent. Bio-analytical segment orders were off only 1 percent from last year and were up 20 percent sequentially.

Nanometrics (NANO) announces multiple orders from new and existing HB-LED customers for RPMBlue and IVS185 metrology systems, which will be used for photoluminescence mapping and critical dimension and overlay control, respectively... Suntech Power Holdings (STP) announces that it expects to develop approx 20% of the 91MW of solar projects that were approved under China's Solar Rooftop Program... Suncor Energy (SU) announces that its Board of Directors has approved the co's $5.5 billion capital spending plans for 2010. Approx $1.5 billion will be directed toward growth project funding, primarily at the co's oil sands operations, while $4 billion in spending is targeted to sustaining existing operations.

09:39 am Sigma Designs downgraded to Sell at Collins Stewart; tgt $9: . Collins Stewart downgrades SIGM to Sell from Hold and sets target price at $9 on concerns of greater than anticipated share loss to BRCM. Their checks indicate that CSCO/MOT will move exclusively to BRCM SOCs for next-gen MSFT Mediaroom IPTV STBs in 2H CY'10. Their previous estimates had anticipated a dual-source scenario with more modest share loss assumptions. They believe that a motivating factor in SIGM's acquisition of Coppergate was to mitigate the revenue impact of share loss to BRCM on MSFT Mediaroom platforms especially at AT&T.

11:32 am Agilent Technologies (A)

Scientific instrument maker Agilent Technologies (A 28.50, +1.07) reported fiscal fourth quarter earnings that beat the consensus estimate despite a steep drop in revenues.

Agilent reported fiscal fourth quarter earnings of $0.32 per share, excluding nonrecurring items, $0.09 better than the First Call consensus of $0.23.

Revenues fell 21.2% year-over-year to $1.17 billion; the consensus expected $1.11 billion.

"While it seems clear that we are past the worst of the global downturn, the pace of recovery is expected to be slow and to vary considerably by market and geography," said CEO Bill Sullivan. "Our restructuring actions to achieve $525 million of annualized savings by mid-2010 are on track and, in recognition of the progress we are making, we have restored full pay around the world effective Nov. 1."

Looking ahead to the company's fiscal first quarter, Agilent expects earnings to range from $0.28 to $0.32 per share, excluding nonrecurring items. The forecast tops the current First Call consensus of $0.27.

Agilent said it expects fiscal first quarter revenues to be roughly flat with one year ago, when the company brought in $1.166 billion. The consensus estimates 1Q10 revenues to come in at $1.09 billion.