From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : For the second straight session the stock market was down sharply before it slashed losses. This time, though, stocks failed to finish near their highs for the day.
Continued concern that the financial troubles of less fiscally responsible countries in the eurozone periphery could spill into the broader global financial system caused yield spreads on the debt of Spain, Portugal, and their ilk to widen. To little surprise, analysts at S&P announced late that they have put Portugal's ratings on Credit Watch with Negative implications.
In order to trim risk market participants dumped stocks in favor of traditional safe havens like the dollar and U.S. Treasuries. The dollar settled with a 0.6% gain against competing currencies, but Treasuries ultimately surrendered most of their gains.
The early push against stocks sent the S&P 500 down more than 1%. Prior session lows were probed near the 1174 line, but support at that point held so as to provide stocks with a floor for a rebound.
Losses were cut further following the latest Consumer Confidence Index, which improved in November to a five-month high of 54.1 from 49.9 in October. The Index had been widely expected to improve to a more moderate 52.0.
Stocks set their highs for the day after President Obama expressed that the White House is currently involved in efforts to extend unemployment benefits. Efforts to extend the Bush tax cuts are also broadly believed to be underway.
Still, the S&P 500 never did manage to push into positive territory. That failure invited some late selling.
Tech stocks had the most adverse impact on trade. The sector, which is the largest by market weight, suffered the worst loss of any sector with a 1.4% drop. Weakness in the tech space proved especially damaging to the Nasdaq, which trailed its counterparts for the entire day.
Tech was also one of the poorest performing sectors of November. For the month it fell 1.8%, which was enough to drag down the broad-based S&P 500 to a 0.2% loss for November after it had set a two-year high earlier in the month.
Telecom was the only major sector to muster a gain. It advanced just 0.1%. It still logged a 1.4% monthly loss.
Worth mention, though, is that the materials sector completely erased an early loss of more than 1% to finish flat today. That was helped by precious metals plays after gold prices finished pit trade up 1.3% at $1386.10 per ounce and silver settled gained 3.2% higher at $28.21 per ounce. Materials stocks collectively gained 0.9% in November.
End-of-the-month trade brought about an increase in trading volume, such that more than 1.5 billion shares were traded on the NYSE today. That makes for the biggest one-day total in two months.
Advancing Sectors: Telecom (+0.1)
Declining Sectors: Tech (-1.4%), Health Care (-0.8%), Financials (-0.7%), Consumer Staples (-0.5%), Consumer Discretionary (-0.3%), Energy (-0.3%), Industrials (-0.3%), Utilities (-0.1%)
Unchanged: MaterialsDJ30 -46.47 NASDAQ -26.99 NQ100 -1.3% R2K -0.7% SP400 -0.6% SP500 -7.21 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 857/2.32 bln/1784 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 994/1.53 bln/1948
4:21PM OmniVision beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (OVTI) 28.29 0.83 : Reports Q2 (Oct) earnings of $0.58 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.53; revenues rose 30.7% year/year to $239.5 mln vs the $232.3 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.50-0.63, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.41 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees Q3 revs of $230-250 mln vs. $209.64 mln Thomson Reuters consensus.
4:20PM OmniVision initially pops 6% to $30.00 following Q2 earnings results and upside Q3 EPS and revs guidance; now at $29.62 (OVTI) 28.29 -0.83 :
4:16PM Motorola board of directors has approved the separation of Motorola Mobility Holdings from Motorola, Inc. through a tax-free dividend (MOT) 7.66 -0.11 : Co announces that its board of directors has approved the separation of Motorola Mobility Holdings from Motorola, Inc. through a tax-free dividend involving the distribution of all Motorola Mobility common stock held by Motorola to Motorola stockholders and has also approved a reverse stock split of shares of Motorola common stock following the distribution. On Jan. 4, 2011, Motorola, Inc. will change its name to Motorola Solutions, Inc. and will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol MSI, and Motorola Mobility Holdings will begin trading on the NYSE under the ticker symbol MMI.
Rudolph Technologies (RTEC) is partnering with a semiconductor assembly and test services manufacturer to provide its inspection and metrology capability in the development of stacked packaging processes.
Applied Materials (AMAT) announced that it has entered into a settlement agreement with Samsung Electronics Co. The Agreement resolves potential civil claims and removes the risk of civil litigation between the parties relating to the alleged acquisition, misappropriation and misuse of Samsung confidential semiconductor information in Korea. It also establishes a broad framework of incentives to Samsung for the future relationship between the two companies.
6:40AM Trina Solar beats by $0.21, beats on revs; raises FY10 shipment guidance (TSL) 23.89 : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $1.08 per share, $0.21 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.87; revenues rose 103.5% year/year to $508.3 mln vs the $420.6 mln consensus. For Q4, the co expects to ship ~300 MW of PV modules. For FY10, the co raises its guidance for total PV module shipments to be ~1 GW, compared to its earlier guidance of between 900 MW to 930 MW, representing an increase of ~151% from the annual PV module shipments in 2009. As a result of strong demand for its module products in both European and non-European markets, including the United States, the co expects to increase its shipment volume in the fourth quarter of 2010 compared to the third quarter of 2010. The co expects its Euro denominated Q4 ASP to increase QoQ. The co expects that the actual manufacturing yield of its PV cell and module production may reach up to 1.1 GW of annualized capacity during the fourth quarter of 2010. In 2H11, the co expects to raise its annualized in-house production capacity of ingot and wafer as well as PV cell and module production capacity to reach approximately 1.2 GW and 1.7 GW, respectively, based on actual manufacturing yield.
6:30AM Sunpower and NRG (NRG) Solar agreed to build 250-megawatt California Valley solar ranch (SPWRA) 11.95 : NRG Solar, a subsidiary of NRG Energy, and SunPower Corp. announced agreements to begin construction next year of the 250-megawatt (MW) California Valley Solar Ranch in San Luis Obispo County. The solar power plant is expected to create approximately 350 jobs during construction, will power about 100,000 homes and will be one of the largest photovoltaic solar power plants in the world, when complete. NRG Solar plans to invest up to $450 million of equity in the project over the next four years.
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