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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 10-Sep-10The major indices settled with modest gains following a holiday-shortened week of light corporate news and economic reports. The economic reports that were released, however, helped quiet fears of a double dip recession.

The S&P 500 settled with a gain of 0.5% after advances in the last three sessions offset a loss of 1.2% on Tuesday. Seven of the ten sectors advanced, led by healthcare (+2.0%) and industrials (+1.6%). The utilities sector (-0.7%) underperformed as PG&E (PCG) slipped 7.4% after a natural gas pipeline it owned exploded and started a fire. Overall trading volume was once again light, in part due to the Rosh Hashanah holiday.

Banks were in focus throughout the week. The WSJ issued a report that questioned the European stress test results, which sparked selling early in the week. Meanwhile, the Basel III capital guidelines are expected to be announced Sunday, which fueled speculation regarding how much standards will be tightened. According to reports, Deutsche Bank (DB) is already planning on raising $9 bln euros and is expected to be the first as many European banks that will need to shore up capital to meet the new Basel requirements. The financial sector slipped 0.5% for the week.

In other corporate news, Oracle was a top gainer this week surging 9.3% on word that it hired former Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CEO Mark Hurd as co-president. In response, HP filed a lawsuit against Hurd over breach of contract.

Texas Instruments (TXN) shed 2.6% for the week after the company narrowed its third quarter outlook, which remains in-line with the Thomson Reuters average analyst estimate.

Economic data were on the light side, though the weekly new unemployment claims reading did spark some buying interest. Initial jobless claims for the week ended September 4 totaled 451,000, which is down 27,000 week-over-week and less than the 470,000 claims that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. Continuing claims came in at 4.48 million, but that was a greater tally than the 4.45 million that had been widely expected. Continuing claims were essentially unchanged week-over-week.

In other economic news, July consumer credit data showed that credit fell another $3.6 billion. Consumer credit has tightened for six straight months and in 17 of the last 18 months.

Treasury trading was volatile, with yields falling sharply on Tuesday and then gaining following several auctions. The yield on the 10-year note started the week at 2.70%, hit an intraweek low of 2.59% on Tuesday and then rebounded to settle at 2.79%.

 
 Index      Started Week   Ended Week  Change % Change   YTD % 
 DJIA         10447.93     10462.77    14.84     0.1     0.3 
 Nasdaq        2233.75      2242.48     8.73     0.4    -1.2 
 S&P 500       1104.51      1109.55     5.04     0.5    -0.5 
 Russell 2000   643.36       636.46    -6.90    -1.1     1.8

8:31AM MEMC Elec signs memorandum of understanding for 400MW of solar projects with provincial government in Korea (WFR) 10.69 :

7:15AM Actel confirms Q3 Guidance (ACTL) 15.40 : Co reaffirms Q3 revs of +3-7% sequentially (vs 5.1% consensus) and gross margin of ~65%

07:39 am Sigma Designs initiated with a Hold at The Benchmark Company: . The Benchmark Company initiates SIGM with a Hold saying despite a compelling valuation, they choose a Hold due to looming competition from Broadcom (BRCM) and uncertainty relating to AT&T's next generation home networking choice.