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From Briefing.com: 4:35 pm : Sellers were able to dog stocks for the entire session and hand the S&P 500 its worst single-session percentage loss of the month as buyers stepped to the sidelines amid a lack of positive catalysts. Buyers showed some mild interest late in the session and helped stocks make a couple of upward spurts, but the moves were quickly repressed.

Strength in the dollar kept many buyers at bay this session. The Dollar Index had been up as much as 0.7%, but settled with a gain of 0.3%. Though it settled off of session highs, its advance was enough to pressure both the equity market and commodities pits.

That blend of weakness proved troubling for energy stocks (-2.1%) and materials stocks (-1.5%). The two sectors traded with some of the worst losses of any major sector this session, but materials were able to improve their position late as gold prices rebounded to finish fractionally higher at $1141.90 per ounce.

Consumer staples stocks were able to maintain modest losses this session. The sector closed just 0.3% lower. Health care held up relatively well, too. The sector finished 0.5% lower following news that Senator Reid presented last evening a health care reform bill from the Senate.

Treasury Secretary Geithner appeared before the Joint Economic Committee on Financial Reform today. Geithner told Congress that the reform effort was essential for the health of the economy, but representatives were critical of Geithner.

Once again, data did little for stocks. Initial jobless claims for the week ending November 14 hit 505,000, which is in-line with what had been expected. The four-week moving average now stands at 514,000, down from 520,500. Meanwhile, continuing claims came in at 5.61 million, which is in step with what had been widely forecast.

In other economic news, leading economic indicators for October increased 0.3%, which is not as strong as the 0.4% that was expected. The Philadelphia Fed Survey for November came in at 16.7, which is better than the reading of 12.2 that had been widely forecast. Third quarter mortgage delinquencies hit 9.6%, which is up from the 9.2% that was registered in the second quarter.

On a similar note, the OECD said that U.S. GDP would likely grow 2.5% in 2010, while its collective 30-member nations would expand 1.9%.

Advancing Sectors: (None)
Declining Sectors: Energy (-2.1%), Financials (-2.0%), Tech (-1.6%), Industrials (-1.5%), Materials (-1.5%), Utilities (-1.2%), Consumer Staples (-1.2%), Telecom (-0.7%), Health Care (-0.5%), Consumer Staples (-0.3%)DJ30 -93.87 NASDAQ -36.32 SP500 -14.90 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 549/2.27 bln/2127 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 572/1.08 bln/2480

4:51PM Applied Materials commences tender offer for all outstanding shares of Semitool at $11.00 (SMTL) 10.94 -0.03 :

4:09PM Verigy beats by $0.08, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (VRGY) 9.00 -0.40 : Reports Q4 (Oct) loss of $0.12 per share, $0.08 better than the First Call consensus of ($0.20); revenues fell 35.3% year/year to $97 mln vs the $96.4 mln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of ($0.09)-($0.02) vs. ($0.14) consensus; sees Q1 revs of $105-115 mln vs. $105.60 mln consensus. "While we are coming off a low base, we are encouraged by the improved demand that we are seeing from customers with revenue increasing for the third consecutive quarter," said Bob Nikl, Verigy's chief financial officer. "As we enter the new fiscal year, we can expect improvements in our operating leverage as a result of the significant benefits from our restructuring programs."

4:05PM Dell misses by $0.05, misses on revs (DELL) 15.87 -0.19 : Reports Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.23 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 worse than the First Call consensus of $0.28; revenues fell 14.9% year/year to $12.9 bln vs the $13.18 bln consensus. Sees sequentially higher revs in Q4 vs the +2.7% QoQ consensus. Dell reports Q3 gross margin of 17.3% vs 18.1% Street consensus. For the fourth quarter, Dell expects seasonal demand improvement in its Consumer business, while demand in Public is typically lower during the quarter. "We are seeing improvement in overall underlying IT demand that is continuing into the fourth quarter. The same is true with momentum in Dell's business, specifically in our Large Enterprise and SMB segments. The launch of Windows 7 is being very well received by SMBs and consumers, and we'll see the benefits of that more fully in our fiscal Q4."

1:19PM Microsoft outlines growth agenda at annual shareholder meeting (MSFT) 29.84 -0.27 : Speaking at Microsoft Corp.'s Annual Shareholder Meeting today, Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer highlighted the company's execution over the past year, and announced sales figures for Windows 7, and detailed the company's plans to continue to deliver shareholder value in the long term. "Windows 7 is the simply best PC operating system we have ever built... Since launch, we've already sold twice as many units of Windows 7 than any other operating system we've ever launched in a comparable time." Ballmer also pointed to the momentum the company was experiencing in other key areas of its business, with delivery of products and services including Bing, Windows Server 2008, Windows Azure, and the upcoming release of Microsoft Office 2010.

RF Micro Devices (RFMD) announces that RFMD has been selected by a leading manufacturer of smartphones to support two upcoming CDMA smartphones.

7:25AM Kulicke & Soffa beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs in-line (KLIC) 5.30 : Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.09 per share, $0.05 better than the First Call consensus of $0.04; revenues rose 80.6% year/year to $110.5 mln vs the $102.7 mln consensus with gross margins at 42.7%. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $115-120 mln vs. $116.50 mln consensus.

6:33AM Suntech Power beats by $0.08, beats on revs (STP) 15.09 : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.16 per share, $0.08 better than the First Call consensus of $0.08; revenues fell 20.4% year/year to $473.1 mln vs the $426.6 mln consensus. Suntech expects 4Q09 shipments to be at least 10% higher than 3Q09. Gross margin in 4Q09 is expected to be relatively flat compared to 3Q09 (17.8% vs the 19.3% consensus). Suntech has increased FY09 PV shipment target from 600MW to a range of 640-660MW. Capital expenditures are expected to be approximately $120 million for FY09. Looking into next year, Suntech expects at least 75% shipment growth in 2010. The co targets to expand to 1.4GW of PV cell and module production capacity by the middle of 2010, of which 450MW will be Pluto-enabled. Accordingly, Suntech expects capital expenditures to be approximately $200 million in 2010. Gross profit margin for the core wafer to module business was 20.0% in 3Q09, compared with 19.1% in the second quarter of 2009. Consolidated gross profit margin was 17.8% in 3Q09 vs the 19% consensus, compared with 18.6% in 2Q09. The lower gross margins were primarily due to low profitability of the systems integration business in China that has been implementing some of China's first utility scale solar.

09:38 am Advanced Micro upgraded to Buy at Broadpoint AmTech Research; tgt raised to $10: . Broadpoint AmTech Research upgrades AMD to Buy from Neutral and raises their tgt to $10 from $5.80 as the recent positive events (Analyst Day/INTC settlement/capital structure) lead the firm to believe that AMD's risk/reward is now compelling. The firm notes that AMD's capital structure improved as a result of INTC's $1.25 bln settlement and yesterday's announcement of debt restructuring actions. The firm believes that AMD's debt of ~$3.7 bln will be reduced by ~25%, while also lowering interest expense slightly less, ~20%. Should Global Foundries and ATIC's chartered purchase be consolidated, the firm believes that they could see deconsolidation in the following 3-6 months. Furthermore, the firm feels that revenue growth in the coming quarters will prove to be stronger than the Street is modeling, driven by: a healthy Win7 cycle; leadership in the Evergreen GPU platform; more focused marketing; and possible tailwind from INTC settlement headlines entering the selling season.

08:55 am NetApp (NTAP)

NetApp (NTAP 29.56) reported fiscal second quarter results Wednesday evening that beat expectations and issued upside revenue guidance for its third quarter, news that has shares of the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company about 4% higher in Thursday's premarket action.

NetApp reported fiscal second quarter earnings of $0.37 per share, excluding nonrecurring items, $0.07 better than the First Call consensus of $0.30.

Revenues fell 0.2% year-over-year to $910 million but easily topped the $881 million consensus.

"NetApp delivered a strong quarter with record gross margins, record revenue from our SAN products, and overall revenue that exceeded our expectations," said CEO Tom Georgens. "Our value proposition resonates particularly well with customers who look to gain efficiency and streamline operations as they begin to build out their next-generation virtualized data centers. Driven by this demand, NetApp is forecasting record revenues for our next fiscal quarter."

NetApp said it expects fiscal third quarter earnings of $0.36 to $0.37 per share, excluding nonrecurring items; the consensus estimates $0.36. NetApp sees fiscal third quarter revenues of $935 million to $955 million. The company's forecast tops the current consensus estimate of $920.91 million.

Shares of NTAP have more than doubled year-to-date.