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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Stocks chopped along in mixed fashion for the entire session. Though that made for rather lackluster action, it allowed recent gains to consolidate.

Overall buying interest cooled among market participants this session. In turn, the major market averages lacked leadership and were confined to a relatively narrow trading range until a late slip led to a weak finish.

Financials hampered the broader market for the entire session. The sector dropped 1.7% as its declining issues outnumbered its advancers. Citigroup (C 4.61, -0.25), regularly one of the most actively traded names by volume, fell 5% after it disclosed that the Treasury will sell up to some 7 billion its shares.

Shares of BlackRock (BLK 192.95, -18.07) dropped more than 8% in their worst single-session percentage loss in more than one year after the company announced earnings that came short of the consensus.

Given that the broader market has come to expect both strong earnings and strong guidance from reporting companies, Dow component Caterpillar (CAT 71.65, +2.87) climbed to a fresh 52-week high after it had posted earnings that exceeded the consensus estimate and raised its outlook.

Whirlpool (WHR 112.42, +10.20) did the same and saw its stock hit an all-time high.

Humana (HUM 43.56, -1.97) also cleared the heightened hurdle with an upside earnings surprise and upside guidance, but its stock succumbed to the efforts of sellers. Its weakness bled into shares of other managed care companies, which dropped to a collective loss of 3.1%. Health care stocks, as a whole, shed 1.1%.

Weakness among financials and health care, two of the largest sectors in the broader market, kept stocks were mired for most of the session, but the dollar was able to garner modest support as the euro retreated amid persistent concerns regarding the deployment of funds for Greece from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. The greenback gave up some of its gain, but it still finished slightly higher for the session.

Treasuries had a quiet session. The at-record $11 billion 5-yr TIPS auction was met with a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.2, which is slightly above that of the prior auction, and an indirect bidder participation rate of 23.1%, which is below the rate of 47.8% from the prior average. Results from an auction of 2-year Notes will be released tomorrow at 1:00 PM ET.

Trading volume was strong once again. In fact, for the first time this year volume on the NYSE has exceeded the 200-day moving average for four straight sessions.

Advancing Sectors: Consumer Discretionary (+0.6%), Industrials (+0.2%), Materials (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: Financials (-1.7%), Health Care (-1.1%), Utilities (-0.4%), Telecom (-0.3%), Tech (-0.2%), Energy (-0.2%), Consumer Staples (-0.2%) DJ30 +0.75 NASDAQ -7.20 NQ100 -0.3% R2K -0.4% SP400 -0.4% SP500 -5.23 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1306/2.38 bln/1420 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1429/1.22 bln/1616

4:18PM Nanometrics announces follow-on shipments and qualification of UniFire for high volume production (NANO) 10.51 0.00 : Co announced that additional UniFire 7900 metrology systems have been delivered and qualified by an existing customer, and are currently in production for high volume manufacturing process control of advanced wafer-level packaging processes.

4:16PM Anadigics beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (ANAD) 5.34 +0.16 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of ($0.05); revenues rose 42.9% year/year to $43.5 mln vs the $42.5 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.01 vs. ($0.03) Thomson Reuters consensus; sees Q2 revs of $48.7 mln vs. $45.27 mln Thomson Reuters consensus.

4:15PM Emulex beats by $0.14, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (ELX) 13.66 +0.35 : Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.30 per share, $0.14 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.16; revenues rose 33.4% year/year to $102.2 mln vs the $102.5 mln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.16-0.18 vs. $0.18 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees Q4 revs of $100-103 mln vs. $106.68 mln Thomson Reuters consensus.

4:10PM Extreme Networks beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS midpoint above consensus, revs above consensus (EXTR) 3.52 : Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.06 per share, $0.02 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.04; revenues rose 1.3% year/year to $78.2 mln vs the $78 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.05-0.07 vs. $0.05 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees Q4 revs of $82-85 mln vs. $81.50 mln Thomson Reuters consensus. "Third quarter revenue reflected solid performance in North America, where product revenue increased 30% from the second quarter, reversing a historic pattern of sequential revenue declines as we executed to our target for the quarter... We also posted positive net income and grew revenue-per-employee to the highest level since the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008."

4:09PM Veeco Instruments beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (VECO) 51.06 -0.55 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.49 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.48; revenues rose 159.9% year/year to $163.2 mln vs the $163.9 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.78-0.90, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.59 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees Q2 revs of $220-240 mln vs. $195.88 mln Thomson Reuters consensus. Co said, "We continue to see strong momentum in our LED business. We believe our TurboDisc K465i MOCVD System has hit the market at the right time, offering high productivity and best-in-class yields. As a result, Veeco has been gaining share and winning business at many of the world's top LED manufacturers. To date, second quarter business patterns remain extremely strong, with multi-tool system orders being quoted at a large number of customers. In fact, several key Asian customers have already booked sizeable orders in April"

4:08PM Volterra Semi beats by $0.08, beats on revs (VLTR) 28.19 +0.55 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.35 per share, $0.08 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.27; revenues rose 98.4% year/year to $36.3 mln vs the $35.1 mln consensus.

4:05PM PLX Tech beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (PLXT) 6.35 +0.44 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.07 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.04; revenues rose 74.5% year/year to $28.8 mln vs the $28 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $28-31 mln vs. $28.95 mln Thomson Reuters consensus.

4:04PM Sanmina-SCI beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (SANM) 19.22 +0.25 : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.29 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.25; revenues rose 27.5% year/year to $1.53 bln vs the $1.51 bln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.30-0.36 vs. $0.29 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees Q3 revs of $1.55-1.65 vs. $1.55 bln Thomson Reuters consensus. Operating margin for the second quarter was 3.7 percent, up 40 basis points, compared to 3.3 percent in the prior quarter and a 270 basis point improvement compared to 1 percent in the second quarter fiscal 2009.

10:30AM MEMC Elec unit SunEdison to develop solar PV Program for Remington in Ontario (WFR) 16.24 +0.42 : Co's unit SunEdison announced that it will be developing and constructing up to fourteen roof-top solar photovoltaic projects with capacity totaling up to 3 Megawatts for The Remington Group, one of the leading real estate developers in Ontario. Under the agreement, SunEdison will finance, build, own, operate, monitor and maintain photovoltaic solar energy systems hosted at Remington facilities, and the Ontario Power Authority will purchase the energy produced under the terms of Ontario's Feed-in Tariff Program.

MIPS Technologies, Inc. (MIPS) and Imagination Technologies have formed a strategic alliance to ensure the optimum system solution and support for customers combining IP from both companies...

O2Micro International Limited (OIIM) was issued 16 claims under United States patent number 7,668,643 for its Automatic Automotive Exhaust Emission data processing system...

7:01AM Celestica CEO enters automatic securities disposition plan (CLS) 10.91 : Co announced that Craig Muhlhauser, President & Chief Executive Officer, has entered into an automatic securities disposition plan for the sale of up to 1,496,147 Subordinate Voting Shares between May 10, 2010 and April 29, 2011. The shares represent approximately thirty-five per cent of Mr. Muhlhauser's total vested and unvested equity at target performance levels.