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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Despite an early slide, stocks were able to settle with solid, broad gains Tuesday.

The major averages opened with narrow gains after a member of the Bank of England made the case for further monetary stimulus. The comments, along with speculation that European central banks will purchase troubled debt, helped relieve worries about sovereign debt.

However, sellers were quick to step into the action. Their efforts intensified with the September Consumer Confidence Index, which made a surprise drop to a seven-month low of 48.5.

The stock market attracted support as it came within close contact of its summer trading range top. Technical support provided a floor from which stocks could rebound, but a lack of actual leadership left stocks to spend most of the afternoon hugging the neutral line until a late spurt of buying helped stocks finish near their session highs.

Thanks to better-than-expected earnings, Walgreen (WAG 33.81, +3.46) was the best performer of the day. Its spike made for its best single-session performance in more than a year.

In contrast, Monsanto (MON 48.75, -4.32) was the worst performer of the day. Its dive came amid cautious comments about the company's seeds products and some negative numbers from an Australian agricultural chemical company. The stock weighed on the broader materials sector, which had lagged for most of the session and only mustered a fractional gain in the moments ahead of the close.

Though the broader market's overall gain was a bit restricted, advancing issues outnumbered decliners by 4-to-1. More upbeat were small-cap stocks, which helped the Russell 2000 advance 1.1%.

Treasuries had a strong session as the 30-year Bond climbed a full point, the 10-year Note tacked on 16 ticks, and the 5-year Note gained about eight ticks. Results from the latest 5-year Note auction drew a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.96, dollar demand of $103.6 billion, and an indirect bidder participation rate of 50.1%. Though the latest auction saw slightly better demand than the sale did in August, dollar demand still was not that strong since it was the third lowest of the last twelve auctions.

The dollar dropped to a new seven-month low as the euro rallied 1.0% against the greenback. From its session low to its session high the euro swung 1.6% to end the day near $1.36.

Advancing Sectors: Health Care (+0.9%), Consumer Staples (+0.8%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.8%), Energy (+0.8%), Industrials (+0.5%), Financials (+0.3%), Utilities (+0.2%), Tech (+0.1%), Telecom (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: (None)
Unchanged: MaterialsDJ30 +46.10 NASDAQ +9.82 NQ100 +0.1% R2K +1.1% SP400 +0.8% SP500 +5.54 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1760/2.14 bln/853 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2114/1.03 bln/870

4:03PM SMSC beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (SMSC) 22.48 +0.79 : Reports Q2 (Aug) earnings of $0.51 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.41; revenues rose 38.6% year/year to $104.1 mln vs the $102.2 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.42-0.43, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.47 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees Q3 revs of $104-107 vs. $107.29 mln Thomson Reuters consensus.

11:02AM Fairchild Semi entered into a memorandum of understanding with Sichuan Changhong Electric (FCS) 9.12 -0.05 : The strategic partnership enables the companies to collaborate further on product development. Changhong has committed to fulfilling purchasing target plans for Fairchild's leading-edge power and mobile components through December 2015. Fairchild's devices are designed into a broad range of Changhong products including LED TVs, PDP TVs, LCD TVs, CRT TVs, set-top boxes, refrigerators and air conditioners.

MIPS Technologies (MIPS) announced that long-time MIPS customer PMC-Sierra (PMCS) is licensing a broad range of MIPS32 processor cores...

08:58 am First Solar target raised to $180 at Argus: . Argus raises their FSLR tgt to $180 from $155 as co is emerging as a beneficiary of the increased push by U.S. utilities toward alternative fuels. Partly as a result of decisions by utility boards and state-mandated targets, North American utilities are increasingly investing in alternative electricity-generation sources such as wind power and solar photovoltaic. Despite the recent surge in FSLR shares, firm believes that they remain deeply undervalued based on the co's earnings prospects.

10:46 am OIIM Lowers Q3 Guidance (OIIM)

O2Micro (OIIM 5.76 +0.02) revised its financial expectations for the third quarter of fiscal 2010, ending September 30, 2010.

The third quarter revenue is expected to be below previous estimates due to inventory adjustments in the supply chain.

The company currently expects revenue to be down 10% to 15% from second quarter levels versus -7%.

The gross margin is expected to be ~60%.

09:45 am JBL Guides Q1 EPS In-line (JBL)

Jabil Circuit (JBL 13.35 -0.54) reported fourth quarter 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-over-year to $3.86 billion versus the $3.89 billion consensus.

For the first quarter, the company guided earnings in the range of $0.53 to $0.57 per share, excluding non-recurring items, versus $0.53 Thomson Reuters consensus. On the top line, the company expects to see revenue at $3.9 billion to $4.0 billion versus the $4.09 billion Thomson Reuters consensus.