From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Stocks had looked like they might muster a slight gain in the final hour of trade, but a late-session selloff led stocks to finish at their lows with broad losses.
Financials led the slide into the close. The sector shed 1.2%, which makes for the worst loss of any major sector. Regional banks were under some of the most pressure; they dropped 2.2%.
In contrast, telecom stocks held on to their gains. In turn, the sector made it out with a 0.9% gain. The sector's lack of market weight left it unable to provide legitimate leadership to the broader market, though.
Airline shares also outperformed. Their strength helped the Amex Airline hit its highest level in almost three years. Its 1.8% gain was underpinned by news that Southwest Air (LUV 13.35, +1.07) will acquire Air Tran Holdings (AAI 7.34, +2.79) for $7.69 per share, a 69% premium over AAI's closing price from Friday.
Alberto-Culver (ACV 37.64, +6.16) also made merger and acquisition news with word that it will be acquired by Unilever for $37 per share, which represents a premium of about 17% over ACV's closing price from last week.
A lack of data, market moving headlines, and the absence of a consensus regarding the direction of the stock market kept participants on the sidelines. That depressed share volume, such that trading volume on the NYSE failed to break 1 billion shares again. Since the start of September trading volume on the Big Board has only broken above 1 billion shares on four occasions.
Treasuries had a strong session that saw the yield on the 10-year Note slide to 2.52%. The yield on the 2-year Note eased to just below 0.42% following an auction of 2-year Treasuries that drew a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.78, dollar demand of $136.1 billion, and indirect bidder participation of 39.0%. For comparison, the prior auction had a bid-to-cover of 3.12, dollar demand of $115.4 billion, and indirect bidder participation of 29.2%.
Advancing Sectors: Telecom (+0.9%), Utilities (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: Financials (-1.2%), Industrials (-0.8%), Health Care (-0.8%), Materials (-0.7%), Consumer Discretionary (-0.6%), Consumer Staples (-0.5%), Energy (-0.4%), Tech (-0.2%)DJ30 -48.22 NASDAQ -11.45 NQ100 -0.6% R2K -0.4% SP400 -0.2% SP500 -6.51 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1036/1.89 bln/1614 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1260/919 mln/1706
5:28PM Jabil Circuit beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (JBL) 13.89 +0.32 : Reports Q4 (Aug) earnings of $0.52 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.49; revenues rose 37.9% year/year to $3.86 bln vs the $3.89 bln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.53-0.57, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.53 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees Q1 revs of $3.9-4.0 bln vs. $4.09 bln Thomson Reuters consensus.
4:38PM Research In Motion unveils the BlackBerry PlayBook; new professional-grade tablet (RIMM) 48.36 : In the release, co states "Perfect for either large organizations or an "army of one", the BlackBerry PlayBook is designed to give users what they want, including uncompromised web browsing, true multitasking and high performance multimedia, while also providing advanced security features, out-of-the-box enterprise support and a breakthrough development platform for IT departments and developers... Measuring less than half an inch thick and weighing less than a pound, the BlackBerry PlayBook features a vivid 7" high resolution display... jointly fueled by a 1 GHz dual-core processor and the new BlackBerry Tablet OS... with support for Adobe (ADBE) Flash Player " RIMM is trading up to $49.12 in after hours.
4:32PM Research In Motion announces BBM social platform; to integrate BlackBerry Messenger with apps (RIMM) 48.36 -0.51 : Co announced the BBM (BlackBerry(R) Messenger) Social Platform, giving developers the tools to build applications that take advantage of the social aspects of the popular BBM service. Developers will be able to integrate various functions of the BBM service into their applications including chat capabilities, content sharing, and invitations. Also, co launched its advertising service for the BlackBerry Application Platform. The BlackBerry Advertising Service helps developers integrate advertising in their BlackBerry smartphone applications quickly and easily, while also allowing advertisers, agencies and brands to work with a broad selection of advertising networks.
1:33AM Hewlett-Packard recommends rejection of below-market mini-tender offer for HP Shares by TRC Capital (HPQ) 40.98 : Co announces it has received notice of an unsolicited mini-tender offer by TRC Capital to purchase from HPQ stockholders up to 3 mln shares of HPQ, representing ~0.1% of HPQ's outstanding shares, at a price of $36.70/share in cash. HPQ recommends that stockholders do not tender their shares in response to TRC Capital's offer because the offer is at a price below the current market price for HPQ shares and subject to numerous conditions
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