From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Stocks staged gains in the first few sessions of September, but market participants returned from Labor Day ready to sell. Their efforts were focused on financials and other cyclical plays.
In the four sessions leading up to Labor Day weekend the S&P 500 gained more than 5%. In the wake of such a heady move came rekindled concerns about the health of European banks. That invoked stiff selling among bank stocks. In turn, the KBW Bank Index fell 3.2%, which cut into the 8.5% gain that it had made over the four previous sessions.
Weakness among large-cap banking issues undermined the broader financial sector. As such, financials fell to a collective loss of 2.4% and closed at session lows.
Profit taking also undercut other cyclical plays, like consumer discretionary stocks and energy stocks. Both of those sectors fell 1.6%.
In contrast, defensive-oriented issues were the only ones to limit losses. Specifically, consumer staples stocks and telecom stocks both slipped just 0.3%, while both utilities and health care stocks ended 0.6% lower.
Still, such widespread weakness stoked volatility. That sent the Volatility Index (VIX) up almost 12% from the four-month low that it set late last week.
Amid the stock market's slide and the increase in volatility Treasuries attracted strong support - the benchmark 10-year Note climbed almost a full point and the 30-year Bond tacked on two full points.
Results from an auction of 3-year Notes were largely lackluster. The auction drew a bid-to-cover of 3.2, dollar demand of $105.9 billion and an indirect bidder participation rate of 42.4%. The four previous auctions held an average bid-to-cover of almost 3.3, dollar demand of about $116.3 billion, and an average indirect bidder participation rate of 44.6%.
The greenback made a big gain by climbing 0.9% against a basket of competing currencies. Most of the move was against the euro, which dropped 1.4% in its steepest single-session slide in nearly four weeks.
Favor for safety also sparked buying in the yen, which set a fractionally improved 15-year high of 83.5 yen per dollar. Japan's central bank brought little surprise with its decision to keep its benchmark lending rate at 0.1%.
News flow was light all session, though former Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 39.92, -0.43) head Mark Hurd is now co-President of Oracle (ORCL 24.27, -1.34). CNBC later reported that Hewlett-Packard has filed a lawsuit against Hurd for violating confidentiality agreements.
Advancing Sectors: (None)
Declining Sectors: Financials (-2.4%), Energy (-1.6%), Consumer Discretionary (-1.6%), Tech (-0.9%), Industrials (-0.9%), Materials (-0.8%), Health Care (-0.6%), Utilities (-0.6%), Telecom (-0.3%), Consumer Staples (-0.3%)DJ30 -107.24 NASDAQ -24.86 NQ100 -0.7% R2K -2.2% SP400 -1.5% SP500 -12.67 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 590/1.69 bln/2060 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 799/829 mln/2203
3:30 pm : Soft commodities were the largest advancing sector today, rallying for 1.7% -lead by a 4.1% move in March sugar futures.
Oct crude oil settled lower by 0.7% to $74.09 per barrel. It traded well lower this morning on weakness on concerns about the economy, but was able to recoup most of its losses to end the session with only modest losses. Oct natural ended lower by 1.6% to $3.86 per MMBtu in what was an uneventful session.
Dec gold finished higher by 0.6% to $1259.30 per ounce. A flight to safety, spurred by concerns about the economy, supported gold prices today. Dec silver shed 0.2% to end at $19.91 per ounce. Silver did manage to trade above the $20 level, putting in highs at $20.045 -its best levels since mid-March of 2008.DJ30 -105.58 NASDAQ -25.38 SP500 -12.51 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 596/1.4 bln/2044 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 766/561.8 mln/2225
4:15PM Altera raises Q3 revs guidance above consensus (ALTR) 26.60 -0.23 : Co raises Q3 revenue guidance to 10-14% growth above Q2 levels, which calculates to ~$516.2-535.0 mln vs. $497.8 mln Thomson Reuters consensus, up from prior guidance for sequential growth of 4-8%, which calculates to $488.1-506.8 mln. Co said, "Growth continues to be broad. It is likely that all four of the co's vertical markets will show sequential growth. The telecom and wireless vertical market is on track to be the fastest growing portion of the business, driven in large part by 3G wireless deployments and needs for additional wireless backhaul capacity."
6:51AM GT Solar announces a secondary offering of 10 mln shares of its common stock by GT Solar Holdings; concurrently, GT Solar Holdings enters into agreement to sell up to 15 mln additional shares to UBS Securities and an affiliate (SOLR) 8.78 : Co announces a secondary offering of 10 mln shares of its common stock by one selling stockholder, GT Solar Holdings, pursuant to a shelf registration statement filed with the SEC. Concurrently with this offering, the selling stockholder has entered into agreements to sell up to 15 mln additional shares of co's common stock to UBS Securities and one of its affiliates in connection with an offering by UBS AG of its Mandatorily Exchangeable Notes due 2013. Co will not receive any proceeds from either transaction but will pay the expenses of the selling stockholder.
3:23AM United Micro reports Aug revs increased 20.13% YoY to NT$10.89 bln (UMC) 2.76 :
1:21AM Applied Materials reports significant advances in PV Technologies at PVSEC (AMAT) 10.98 : Co announces significant advances in PV Technologies at PVSEC. Some highlights are 18.4% cell efficiency achieved in back-contacted crystalline silicon cells. Less than 10% conversion efficiency in thin film silicon modules for utility scale applications. Also, factory automation systems boosting solar manufacturing productivity.
AI
Market Data 
Markets 
