From Briefing.com: 4:35 pm : Stocks made their way to solid gains after a soft start, but pressure picked up after stocks failed to extend the advance in afternoon trade. Still, the major indices finished the session modestly higher.
A lack of upbeat headlines and a stronger dollar left buyers with little reason to get back into the action. The tepid tone was reflective of broader sentiment, which has some in fear that the stock market may be overextended after its rally in the past year -- the S&P 500 is up nearly 70% since its multiyear closing low reached exactly one year ago. While no one wants to be in a vulnerable position if a correction takes place, few want to risk missing out on further gains.
Stocks are also just 1% off of their 52-week highs, which were reached in mid-January. A stronger dollar has been a hurdle for stocks to return to that mark, though. The buck advanced a mere 0.1% this session, but that was only after it pared its gain. Initially, the greenback garnered support as the euro and British pound were pressured by news that analysts at Fitch kept a Negative outlook in place for Portugal's AA rating and that Britain's plan to halve its deficit in four years was determined to be too slow.
There were a few corporate news items, but none of them caused any major swings in the stock market. Among the headlines, Texas Instruments (TXN 24.19, -0.50) announced an improved its earnings outlook, which remains in in-line with that of Wall Street. Still, the semiconductor company's shares slipped.
Meanwhile, Cisco (CSCO 26.13, +0.00) unveiled plans for its new router, which is expected to improve the flow of content and, in turn, inspire further content development. That helped AT&T (T 25.56, +0.28) and wireless service plays (+2.8%) prop up the telecom sector, which finished 1.2% higher. Apple (AAPL 223.02, +3.94) was also helped; it gave the Nasdaq a lead over its counterparts for the second straight session.
Northrop Grumman (NOC 64.00, -0.16) announced in-line guidance for fiscal 2010, but the bigger headline was the company's decision to take itself out of contention for a contract to build next generation refueling planes. The latter item buoyed Boeing (BA 67.79, +0.55).
Treasuries came into focus with news that a $40 billion auction of 3-year Notes attracted a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.1, which is above the recent average of 2.9, and an indirect bid of 51.8%, which is on par with the recent average of 52%.
There wasn't any economic data today, but tomorrow brings monthly wholesale inventory data and the Treasury's monthly budget statement.
Advancing Sectors: Telecom (+1.2%), Industrials (+0.8%), Tech (+0.4%), Financials (+0.3%), Energy (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: Materials (-0.5%), Utilities (-0.3%), Consumer Staples (-0.2%), Health Care (-0.1%), Consumer Discretionary (-0.1%)DJ30 +11.86 NASDAQ +8.47 NQ100 +0.6% R2K +0.4% SP400 +0.1% SP500 +1.95 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1483/2.56 bln/1176 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1735/1.12 bln/1314
8:30AM First Solar signs contract with PG&E for 300 MW photovoltaic solar power project (FSLR) 108.64 : Co announces a power purchase agreement to supply Pacific Gas and Electric Company with renewable electricity from a 300 megawatt utility-scale photovoltaic solar power facility that First Solar is developing in Southern California. The Desert Sunlight project, to be located near Desert Center in eastern Riverside County, CA, will have a total capacity of 550 megawatts, enough to power approximately 160,000 area homes - or about 480,000 residents. The other 250 MW portion of the project is already under contract to Southern California Edison. First Solar's power purchase agreements with PG&E and SCE are subject to the approval of the California Public Utilities Commission.
CalAmp (CAMP) and and Kepware Technologies introduce the Air Traffic Controller, a distributed communications processor that optimizes bandwidth over wireless networks... Ixia (XXIA) announces that its "K2" 100 Gigabit Ethernet test solution was implemented in AT&T's (T) testing of a standard-ready, single-flow, 100 GE field trial...
Semtech (SMTC) announces that as an inducement to enter into employment with Semtech, it has made awards effective March 2, 2010 of restricted stock units to three recently hired employees under the Semtech 2009 Long-Term Equity Incentive Inducement Plan...
3:11AM United Microelectronics reports unaudited net sales for February 2010 increased 174.66% year/year to NT$8.63 bln; month/month sales increased 0.4% (UMC) 3.57 :
09:30 am Texas Instruments (TXN)
After the close yesterday, Texas Instruments (TXN 24.69) raised the lower end of its first quarter guidance, which remained in-line with Wall Street estimates.
The company raised the bottom end of its first quarter earnings guidance, putting its forecast to $0.48 to $0.52 per share versus the $0.49 First Call consensus, up from its prior guidance of $0.44 to $0.52. TXN raised the bottom end of its revenue guidance, which moved its current forecast to $3.07 billion to $3.19 billion versus the $3.08 billion consensus, up from prior guidance of $2.95 billion to $3.19 billion.
Shortly after issuing guidance, TXN held a conference call to discuss its new outlook. During the call, the company said, "in general we expect all of our segments to grow sequentially this quarter with the exception of wireless where in wireless base band revenue will decline what would be a seasonally typical amount. Analog and embedded processing are both strong, and even selected areas inside of our other revenue are doing well."
With respect to lead times, the company said it has been able to reduce lead times for some products this quarter although the company still has many products that continue to have extended lead times. This is the result of capacity increases at TXN, especially in the assembly and test areas. The reduced lead times are not due to any softening demand.
So far the company has seen both revenue, as well as orders, quarter-to-date remain strong, and they have remained strong even as the company has begun to reduce the lead times. Regarding inventory, TXN expects to be able to build some inventory this quarter, and in fact the company could see an increase of a few days from the 76 days of inventory that it held at the end of last quarter.
Regarding visibility, the company said it is not significantly different. The company said it still plans on holding utilization rates at about the same level as in the first quarter. TXN also said it thinks its meeting the deliveries to those extended lead times, so in terms of its delinquencies, the company is holding well, but those extended lead times are longer than what it and its customers want from TXN. Separately, cancelations have not trended up this quarter.
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