From Briefing.com: Broadcom (BRCM) announced its subsidiary, Broadcom International, has declared the Offer for Innovision Research & Technology, wholly unconditional as all of the Conditions to the Offer have been satisfied or waived... Mattson Technology (MTSN) announced that leading semiconductor foundries based in Asia have placed multiple orders for the Company's dry strip systems, Suprema and Aspen 3 Strip... Applied Materials (AMAT) announced that it has signed a five-year contract to service all Applied Materials chip production equipment at NXP Semiconductor's facility in Nijmegen, Holland..
7:01AM Research In Motion announces TSX approval for common share repurchase program (RIMM) 53.79 : Co announces that the TSX has approved the share repurchase program announced by RIMM on June 24, 2010. Under its share repurchase program, RIMM may, during the twelve-month period from July 15, 2010 to July 14, 2011, purchase up to 22,457,566 of its common shares through the facilities of the TSX and the Nasdaq Stock Market
From Briefing.com Last Night: 4:30 pm : Stocks spent the final few hours of the session stuck in choppy trade to essentially finish flat for the day. The lackluster action came despite strength in the tech sector.
The major averages showed little clear direction on Monday. Large-cap tech issues provided early leadership and traded with steady strength throughout the session. In turn, the tech sector, which accounts for almost one-fifth of the total weight of the S&P 500, settled 0.7% higher. The broader market failed to follow, though. Instead, it remained range bound into the close and finished only fractionally higher.
Materials were mired in weakness for almost all of the session. The sector sank to a 1.1% loss as steel stocks (-3.7%) and diversified metals and miners plays (-4.1%) were dropped ahead of the latest quarterly report from Dow component Alcoa (AA 10.87, -0.07). Though Alcoa's announcement marks an unofficial start to earnings season, reporting doesn't get going in earnest until next week. As has been the case in recent quarters, most participants will place plenty of significance on corporate forecasts since such outlooks help diminish the uncertainty of coming quarters.
Such uncertainty seemed to keep many on the sidelines. In turn, this session's trading volume was paltry in that hardly 850 million shares were traded on the NYSE. That's the lowest total this year.
Those that did trade didn't have any real cues ahead of Alcoa's announcement. The only item of wide interest was news that Aon (AON 35.62, -2.72) will pay a mix of cash and stock to acquire Hewitt Associates (HEW 46.79, +11.39) for $50.00 per share, which marks a premium of roughly 40% over HEW's closing price last week. The news sent shares of HEW to a fresh 52-week high, but dropped shares of AON to a new 52-week low.
The latest Treasury auction had no real impact on stocks. However, Treasuries gradually gave up their gains after the release of the auction's results. The $35 billion auction of 3-year Notes drew a yield of 1.06% and a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.2, which is above the 12-auction average of 3.0. Indirect bidders accounted for about 41%, but that is below averages of recent auctions.
Advancing Sectors: Tech (+0.7%), Utilities (+0.3%), Consumer Staples (+0.3%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.2%)
Declining Sectors: Materials (-1.1%), Industrials (-0.5%), Health Care (-0.2%), Energy (-0.1%), Telecom (-0.1%)
Unchanged: Financials DJ30 +18.24 NASDAQ +1.91 NQ100 +0.3% R2K -1.2% SP400 -0.5% SP500 +0.79 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 808/1.78 bln/1865 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1072/854 mln/1896
5:31PM Brooks Automation raised Q3 EPS and revs above consensus (BRKS) 8.02 -0.15 : Co raised Q3 EPS to $0.22-0.24 vs. $0.19 Thomson Reuters consensus; co also raised Q3 revs to $156-157 mln vs. $152.7 mln consensus. Co said, "The company further noted that based on current backlog and new order booking trends it also expects sequential revenue gain, margin expansion and earnings growth in the fourth fiscal quarter ending September 30, 2010.
4:14PM Alcoa beats by $0.01, beats on revs; raises aluminum consumption estimate (AA) 10.87 -0.07 : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.01 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.12; revenues rose 22.2% year/year to $5.19 bln vs the $5.05 bln consensus. "The top and bottom line growth was driven by higher volumes from stronger end markets and continued gains from our productivity programs. Based on this improved end-market demand, we are raising our projection for aluminum consumption from 10 percent to 12 percent this year."
4:07PM Novellus beats by $0.06, beats on revs (NVLS) 26.68 +0.19 : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.66 per share, $0.06 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.60; revenues rose 169.6% year/year to $321.4 mln vs the $312 mln consensus.
9:54AM Apple: Expect strong Jun-qtr with big iPad and iPhone cycles driving 2H upside - Caris (AAPL) 260.87 +1.25 : Caris notes that AAPL reports Q3 results July 20 and given they already raised their ests in early June, they make just minor tweaks, including iPads +200K to 3.2 mln, iPhones -300K to 8.4 mln on new product cycling and Macs still 3.25 mln (+25%Y/Y) blnut ASP now blnarely down, keeping their revs/EPS ests effectively unchanged at $15.0 bln/$3.15 from $15.0 bln/$3.12 (vs. consensus $14.3 bln/$3.03), though with further hikes to Sep/Dec iPhones and iPads increasing their CY10 revs/EPS to $68.0 bln/$15.60 from $66.6 bln/$15.23, and CY11 to $78.3bln/$17.53. AAPL remains their top pick and they continue to see a powerful succession of product cycle catalysts driving the next 3 qtrs.
9:32AM Dell expands Cloud Strategy and Services with Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Azure Platform Appliance (DELL) 12.83 -0.03 : Cos announced a strategic partnership in which Dell intends to use the Windows Azure platform appliance, introduced by Microsoft today, as a part of its Dell Services Cloud to develop and deliver next-generation cloud services. The Windows Azure platform appliance will allow Dell to deliver private and public cloud services for Dell and its enterprise, public, small and medium-sized business customers. Dell will also work with Microsoft to develop a Dell-powered Windows Azure platform appliance for enterprise organizations to run in their data centers.
9:31AM eBay and Microsoft announce cloud computing agreement (EBAY) 20.23 -0.06 : Microsoft (MSFT) and eBay announced that eBay will be one of the first customers of Microsoft's new Windows Azure platform appliance for cloud computing.
Mattson Technology (MTSN) announced that a semiconductor memory customer based in Asia has placed multiple orders for the Helios XP rapid thermal processing system. The systems will be delivered to the customer by the end of the current third quarter and will be used for all critical RTP steps in the customer's memory production lines
Rudolph Technologies (RTEC) announced that the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology has placed an order for an NSX Series Macro Inspection System.
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