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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 01-Oct-10The major indices settled with slight losses after a week of relatively range-bound trade. Corporate news was light and economic data came in mixed, with an upside surprise to consumer spending and disappointing consumer sentiment reading.

Seven of the 10 sectors settled in the red, but a strong 2.4% gain in energy as oil prices rallied 6.7% helped offset the weakness. Financials underperformed with a loss of 0.8%.

The stock market may have ended September in lackluster fashion, but the month's overall return was anything but. The S&P 500 gained 8.8%, marking the best month since April 2009 and the best September since the 1930s.

In M&A news, Southwest Airlines (LUV) will acquire Air Tran Holdings (AAI 7.) for $7.69 per share, a 69% premium over AAI's closing price from Friday.

Alberto-Culver (ACV) also made merger and acquisition news with word that it will be acquired by Unilever (UL) for $37 per share, which represents a premium of about 17% over ACV's closing price from the previous week.

In other corporate news, Walgreen (WAG) outperformed after it reported better-than-expected earnings on strong prescription drug sales. The company rallied 10.9% for the week, making it the top S&P 500 performer.

Monsanto (MON) plunged 12.9%, making it the worst S&P 500 performer. The agriculture and chemical company slumped amid reports that its SmartStax seed products are not performing as well as expected, with less expensive seeds providing higher yields.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) was unable to hold on to a weekly gain after sliding on news that the company has hired Leo Apotheker, former head of SAP, as its new CEO and President.

In economic news, September Consumer Confidence Index made a surprise drop to a seven-month low of 48.5, falling well short of the Briefing.com consensus of 54.0..
On the upside, initial jobless claims for the week ended September 25 totaled 453,000, which is slightly less than the 457,000 initial claims that had been forecasted by economists polled by Briefing.com. The latest tally is down 16,000 week-over-week. Continuing claims fell 83,000 week-over-week to 4.46 million.

Personal income and spending during August increased 0.5% and 0.4%, respectively. Both were better than expected. Core personal consumption expenditures increased 0.1% month-over-month, as expected.
The Treasury market posted solid gains this week on the long end of the curve, pushing yields lower thanks to some strong auction results. The 10-year is currently yielding 2.51%, down from 2.55%.

At the same time, the dollar took a hit as the euro and other currencies rallied. The dollar index shed 1.7% for the week.

  
 Index       Started Week  Ended Week   Change  % Change   YTD % 
 DJIA          10860.26     10829.68    -30.58    -0.3     3.9 
 Nasdaq         2381.22      2370.75    -10.47    -0.4     4.5 
 S&P 500        1148.67      1146.24     -2.43    -0.2     2.8 
 Russell 2000    671.01       679.29      8.28     1.2     8.6

Teradyne (TER) entered into a distribution agreement with Accelonix in the United Kingdom and Ireland to satisfy increasing demand for test solutions in those areas... With the number of active Nokia (NOK) service users now reaching 140 million worldwide, the company today announced that more than 200,000 people are currently signing up daily to Ovi, and that Ovi Store has reached the milestone of 2.3 million downloads per day...

09:15 am JA Solar downgraded to Hold at Auriga U.S.A: . Auriga U.S.A downgrades JASO to Hold from Buy based on valuation. The firm says long-term investors may still find further upside to the shares as they assign a below-average P/E of just 8x, given JASO's lack of vertical integration within the solar supply chain, while short-term investors should find the current price level attractive to recognize profits.