From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Stocks staged big gains for the second straight session as market participants continued to display an appetite for risk.
Today the S&P 500 gained more than 1%, which came on top of the prior session's surge of more than 2%. The combination of gains made for the stock market's best back-to-back performance in three months. The latest buying effort came even though market participants were initially disappointed by the failure of the European Central Bank to expand its bond purchasing program. To no surprise, though, the ECB did leave its target interest rate unchanged at 1.00%.
The euro made some sudden swings during a press conference from ECB President Trichet, but it eventually rallied against the dollar. The Dollar Index ended the day down about 0.7%, which made for its second straight loss since setting a two-month high.
Market participants were somewhat dismissive of news that initial jobless claims for the week ended November 27 totaled 436,000, which is up 26,000 from the prior week and greater than the 422,000 initial claims that had been expected among economists polled by Briefing.com.
However, the latest pending home sales figures provoked strong buying, especially among shares of homebuilders, which surged 4.7%. Pending home sales for October had been widely expected to remain flat, but instead spiked 10.4% month-over-month for their best move since record keeping began about 10 years ago. Pending sales were less impressive year-over-year as they tumbled 22.4%, but that was because of home buyer tax credits last year.
Financials attracted the strongest support of any sector this session. They spiked 2.6% as a group, but the biggest moves in that space were made by banking issues. As such, the KBW Bank Index bounced 3.9% higher. Before the start of December, the KBW fell more than 3% during a two-month span. During that same time the S&P 500 had advanced more than 3%. Many banks have been hampered in recent months by concerns about their exposure to the sovereign debt of Europe.
Retailers recorded a collective gain of 1.8%. In addition to broader market support the group was helped by a raft of stronger-than-expected same-store sales reports, which included Black Friday transactions. It is still too early to see how much returned purchases will eat into those sales, however.
Though market participants displayed an increased willingness to take on risk, small-cap stocks and mid-cap stocks didn't perform any better than the broader market. They advanced 1.1% and 1.3%, respectively.
Airline stocks sat out of this session's advance. As a result, the Amex Airline Index shed 0.5%. Despite its lagging performance today, airline shares are still collectively up 46% for the year.
Treasuries oscillated for most of the session before ultimately logging a loss. Amid its swings the benchmark 10-year Note's yield moved above 3.00% for the first time since July.
Tomorrow should be an interesting day for stocks. Given the heady gains of the past two sessions, market participants are likely wondering how the market will fare with the release of the latest monthly payrolls report. The latest factor orders figures and ISM Service Index are also scheduled for release tomorrow.
Advancing Sectors: Financials (+2.6%), Materials (+1.5%), Industrials (+1.5%), Consumer Discretionary (+1.3%), Tech (+1.3%), Energy (+1.3%), Telecom (+1.1%), Health Care (+0.7%), Utilities (+0.3%), Consumer Staples (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: (None)DJ30 +106.63 NASDAQ +29.92 NQ100 +1.0% R2K +1.1% SP400 +1.3% SP500 +15.46 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1685/2.02 bln/960 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2125/1.12 bln/869
4:03PM Magma Design beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (LAVA) 4.43 +0.01 : Reports Q2 (Oct) earnings of $0.07 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.06; revenues rose 14.4% year/year to $33.9 mln vs the $33.3 mln consensus. For Q3 (Jan), co sees EPS of $0.06-0.07, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.07 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees Q3 revs of $34.0-34.5 mln vs. $33.9 mln Thomson Reuters consensus.
JA Solar Holdings (JASO) announced that it has entered into a long-term supplemental wafer and polysilicon supply agreement with GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Limited and its subsidiaries. GCL-Poly will supply JA Solar with an aggregate of approximately 10GW of high quality polycrystalline wafers and polysilicon products for a five year period, from January 2011 to December 2015, at pre-determined shipment volume. The agreement also contains a clause for a price adjustment mechanism.
SunPower (SPWRA, SPWRB) and E.ON Climate and Renewables Italia Solar Srl announced a contract for SunPower to design and build a 3.4-megawatt ground-mounted solar power plant in Italy's Lazio region. Construction on the plant will start this year and is expected to be completed in April 2011.
Advinus Therapeutics and Corning Incorporated (GLW) announced a collaboration to bring Corning Epic label-free detection technology to India. The collaboration between Advinus and Corning enables Advinus to leverage the Corning Epic technology to enhance its own drug discovery capabilities and to provide assay development and screening services to companies both in India and abroad.
2:24AM On The Wires (WIRES) :
* Rambus (RMBS) announced it has filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission requesting the commencement of an investigation pertaining to products from Broadcom (BRCM), Freescale Semiconductor (FSL), LSI (LSI), MediaTek, NVIDIA (NVDA) and STMicroelectronics (STM) that infringe on patents.
* Accenture (ACN) and NHN Corp have signed an agreement to collaborate in the development of applications for smartphones in South Korea. Micron Technology (MU) introduced a portfolio of high-capacity flash memory products that will lengthen the life of NAND for years to come.
SAFC Hitech, a member of the Sigma-Aldrich (SIAL), reinforced its commitment to the Asia-Pacific electronics markets by announcing plans to build a new, dedicated facility in Kaohsiung, Taiwan for transfilling, technical service and production of LED and silicon semiconductor precursors. The new facility is expected to be operational by late 2011.
1:53AM Ixia increases aggregate amount and prices $175 mln of Convertible Senior Notes due 2015 (XXIA) 14.97 : Co announces the pricing of $175 mln aggregate principal amount of its 3.00% Convertible Senior Notes due 2015. The aggregate principal amount was increased from $125 mln to $175 mln from the previously announced offering. The Notes will bear interest at a fixed rate of 3.00% per year, payable semiannually in arrears on June 15 and December 15 of each year, beginning on June 15, 2011. The Notes will be convertible into co's common stock at an initial conversion rate of 51.4536 shares per $1,000 principal amount of Notes, which is equivalent to an initial conversion price of ~$19.43 per share. Co intends to use the net proceeds from the sale of the Notes for general corporate purposes, potential future acquisitions and strategic transactions.
10:02 am Suntech Power upgraded to Buy at Auriga U.S.A; tgt raised to $11: . Auriga U.S.A upgrades STP to Buy from Hold and raises their tgt to $11 from $9 ahead of the Dec 6 Analyst Day and after the Glory Silicon acquisition announcement, they adjust their model only for the expected margin increase from in-house wafering -- and find potential to reach ~22% gross margin in 2011 vs. 4Q guidance of 17% and 2011 Consensus of ~18%. Firm says gross margin of ~20% is also the norm around which STP operated in years past. They model 25% internal wafering capabilities in 2011 to discount recent missteps in execution.
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