From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Stocks logged their first loss in five sessions as weakness among bank stocks imbued broader market trade and the dollar pared its loss. Data was of little consequence this session.
A lack of direction in the early going left stocks vulnerable to a broader slide that was led by bank stocks. Banks succumbed to a concerted selling effort related to concern regarding banks' handling of foreclosures and representation of mortgage loan pools for use in mortgage backed securities.
Given the uncertainty surrounding the situation, participants opted to dump a broad range of banks in high volume. That dropped the KBW Bank Index below its 50-day moving average for a 2.6% loss, its worst in more than one month.
Materials stocks were also hit relatively hard after the sector entered into today's trade with a month-to-date gain of more than 6%. Profit taking sent the sector 0.9% lower.
Telecom outperformed for almost the entire session. The sector's 0.3% advance was led by Dow component Verizon (VZ 32.44, +0.23), which confirmed that it will soon begin to offer the iPad from Apple (AAPL 302.31, +2.17).
The broader market was able to improve its position into the close to finish with a more mild loss. Still, the Volatility Index closed about 8% higher in its sharpest percentage increase since early September.
The dollar also improved its position since dropping to a new 2010 low overnight. Global investors had continued their push against the dollar due to the notion that further quantitative easing could result in a greater number of dollars in circulation. The greenback was able to retrace some of its slide to settle with a 0.6% loss against competing currencies.
Data had little influence on trade. Among the items released, initial jobless claims for the week ended October 9 totaled 462,000, which is more than the 450,000 claims that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. The latest initial claims figure made for a week-over-week increase of 13,000. Continuing claims fell 112,000 week-over-week to 4.40 million.
The Producer Price Index for September increased 0.4%, just as it did in August. The increase for September exceeds the 0.2% monthly increase that had been widely forecast. Excluding food and energy, producer prices increased a more tepid 0.1% for the second straight month, as expected.
Trade during August resulted in a deficit of $46.3 billion, which is up from the $42.6 billion deficit recorded for the prior month. It was also worse than the $44.5 billion deficit that had been generally expected among economists polled by Briefing.com.
Despite losses among stocks and an increase in volatility, Treasuries fell this session. Most of that was due to another disappointing Treasury auction. Demand for 30-year Bonds was the lowest since December 2009. The Bond dropped about 1.5 points so that its yield climbed to 3.90%.
Advancing Sectors: Telecom (+0.3%), Tech (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: Financials (-1.8%), Materials (-0.9%), Industrials (-0.4%), Utilities (-0.2%), Consumer Discretionary (-0.2%), Health Care (-0.2%), Energy (-0.1%)
Unchanged: Consumer StaplesDJ30 -1.51 NASDAQ -5.85 NQ100 -0.1% R2K -0.3% SP400 -0.5% SP500 -4.29 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1202/2.01 bln/1423 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1203/1.11 bln/1773
5:00PM Veeco Announces Asia Expansion Plan; Hangzhou Silan Azure Selects Veeco's MOCVD Tools to Ramp LED Manufacturing (VECO) 40.85 -0.18 : Co announced a significant expansion of Veeco's Asia presence in order to better support the rapid growth of the LED industry and the needs of its customers. VECO announced in a separate release, that Hangzhou Silan Azure Co. Ltd., one of the largest LED manufacturers in China, has placed a multi-tool order for Veeco's TurboDisc K465iTM Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition Systems. The equipment will be placed at Silan Azure's facility in Hangzhou for its high brightness light emitting diode manufacturing ramp.
4:57PM Seagate Technology announces preliminary interest regarding a going private transaction (STX) 12.69 -0.06 : Co received a preliminary indication of interest regarding a going private transaction. Co is in discussions with the party from whom it received the indication of interest, and its board of directors is evaluating the indication of interest and other strategic alternatives. The company has retained Morgan Stanley and Perella Weinberg Partners to provide financial advice and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Arthur Cox as legal counsel. There is no assurance that the company will receive a formal offer or that any transaction will take place. Neither the company nor its representatives will be providing any additional comments regarding the preliminary indication of interest. (Stock is halted)
4:19PM Advanced Micro beats by $0.09, reports revs in-line (AMD) 7.13 -0.08 : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.15 per share, $0.09 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.06; revenues rose 15.7% year/year to $1.62 bln vs the $1.61 bln consensus. Gross margin was 46.0% against 44.0% consensus. AMD expects revenue to be approximately flat sequentially for the fourth quarter of 2010 (approx $1.62 bln vs $1.66 bln consensus)
4:06PM Google beats by $0.96, beats on revs (GOOG) 540.93 -2.37 : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $7.64 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.96 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $6.68; revenues rose 25.0% year/year to $5.48 bln vs the $5.27 bln consensus. Q3 paid clicks (PPC) +~16% YoY vs. ests in the low to mid teens (+15% YoY in Q2), +4% QoQ; cost per click (CPC) +~3% YoY vs. ests in the mid single digits (+4% YoY in Q2), +2% QoQ. Q3 op-ex 30% of revs vs. 29% in Q2. Q3 non-GAAP operating income was $2.93 bln, or 40% of revenues. This compares to non-GAAP operating income of $2.39 bln, or 40% of revenues, in 3Q09. Headcount +7.0% QoQ. TAC 26% of rev vs 27% in 3Q09.
12:28PM MEMC Elec: Sharp to supply thin film solar panels for an 18.5 megawatt DC solar deployment, jointly developed by co, in Ontario, Canada (WFR) 13.50 -0.09 :
8:32AM First Solar Announces Plans for Two New Manufacturing Facilities (FSLR) 136.93 : Co announced plans to build two new four-line manufacturing plants that will boost the company's annual manufacturing capacity by nearly 500 MW to help meet strong demand for its advanced thin-film photovoltaic modules. The plants are expected to be built in the United States and Vietnam and completed in 2012. Each new plant will create approximately 600 green jobs and will be designed to accommodate additional production capacity. Negotiations and site assessments are ongoing in both countries and will be finalized and announced at a later date. The new plants announced today, combined with these previously announced expansions, will nearly double production capacity from 1.4 GW in 2010 to more than 2.7 GW in 2012.
Naval Warfare Systems Command to provide technology updates and new concepts to detect and track submarines. This contract extension is valued at $24 million... WD (WDC) will begin hard drive manufacturing operations in Brazil, positioning the company to more effectively meet customer demand in this rapidly growing market and adding a key element to WD's global supply chain infrastructure...
8:06AM Sunpower JV successfully manufactured the first 100 solar cells (SPWRA) 14.24 : Co announced that AUO SunPower Sdn. Bhd., its joint venture solar cell fabrication facility (Fab 3) in Malaysia with AU Optronics (AUO), has successfully manufactured the first 100 solar cells, yielding a minimum conversion efficiency of 22.2 percent. Construction and ramp of manufacturing in Fab 3 will continue through 2013 and, when complete, will generate more than 1,400 megawatts per year of high-efficiency solar cells. The company anticipates commercial production to ramp up later this year.
Flextronics (FLEX) held a ceremony to celebrate the launch of its newest Flextronics Computing facility located in Wuzhong, China. This new computing-focused campus is strategically aligned with co's other computing sites in Beijing, Shanghai and Wujiang and provides complete design and manufacturing services for desktop, all-in-one computers, notebook products, and tablets...
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