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From Briefing.com: 4:25 pm : Another round of broad buying drove stocks to new two-year highs. Share volume was unimpressive, though.

Stocks made a quick move higher in the early going. Strong gains by Europe's bourses had helped to provide a positive backdrop in the absence of any domestic data. Merger and acquisition activity also acted as a boon as many thought it an encouraging sign that deals are being made even as stocks trade at their best levels in more than two years.

Pride International (PDE 39.80, +5.41) will be purchased with a mix of cash and stock for $41.60 per share, a premium of about 21% over its closing price last week, by Ensco (ESV 52.13, -2.28). That announcement helped stoke buying in other offshore drillers and exploratory plays.

Beckman Coulter (BEC 82.65, +7.48) will be acquired with cash by Danaher (DHR 49.03, +1.05) for $83.50 per share, a premium of about 11% over its closing price last week.

AOL (AOL 21.19, -0.75) announced it will acquire Huffington Post for $315 million in a mostly cash transaction. The deal comes after AOL had announced better-than-expected earnings last week.

Financials were this session's best performers; they climbed 1.5%. The move was largely led by multi-line insurers like Loews Corp (L 43.27, +1.87), which posted an upside earnings surprise for its latest quarter.

Humana (HUM 58.74, -1.80) was also out with earnings, but its results came short of the consensus forecast. An improved outlook from the firm failed to offset the offense.

While buying lifted the broader market to its best level since mid-2008, there wasn't a lot of share volume behind the move. In fact, share volume on the NYSE failed to break 900 million.

Today's only piece of data was released late in the afternoon. It indicated that consumer credit during December increased by $6.09 billion, which is far more than the $2.50 billion increase that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. Consumer credit for November had increased by $2.02 billion.

An appetite for risk had initially helped to renew pressure against Treasuries so that yields climbed to levels not seen since May, but they were able to rebound. The benchmark 10-year Note still finished with a fractional loss, but the 30-year Bond scored its first gain in a week.

The dollar finished flat after it had staged gains in the previous three sessions. It had been on pace for another gain, but fell in afternoon trade.

Advancing Sectors: Financial (+1.5%), Industrials (+1.0%), Utilities (+0.7%), Tech (+0.6%), Energy (+0.6%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.5%), Materials (+0.5%), Consumer Staples (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: Health Care (-0.2%), Telecom (-0.2%) DJ30 +69.48 NASDAQ +14.69 NQ100 +0.5% R2K +1.0% SP400 +0.9% SP500 +8.18 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1803/1.77 bln/863 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2073/88 mln/917

4:37PM SMSC issues statement in response to announcement by CNXT of receipt of unsolicited proposal from Golden Gate Private Equity (SMSC) 24.56 +0.17 : "We continue to believe that the combination of Conexant (CNXT) and SMSC provides for a highly complementary merger of talent and technology that is in the interests of Conexant stockholders, customers and employees... We believe that SMSC and Conexant together have the opportunity to take advantage of economies of scale and drive profitable growth, and that our proposal would provide Conexant stockholders with the opportunity to participate in the future success of the combined company." Under the terms of the merger agreement, SMSC will have an opportunity to propose changes to the agreement in the event that Conexant determines that another proposal is superior to the SMSC transaction.

4:31PM Intel is resuming shipments of the Intel 6 Series Chipset for use only in PC system configurations that are not impacted by the design issue; no change to updated outlook (INTC) 21.69 : Co announces that it is resuming shipments of the Intel(R) 6 Series Chipset for use only in PC system configurations that are not impacted by the design issue. Only computer makers who have committed to shipping the Intel(R) 6 Series Chipset in PC system configurations that are not impacted by the design issue will be receiving these shipments. This resumption of shipments of the Intel 6 Series Chipset is not changing the company's updated first quarter 2011 and full-year financial Outlook published on January 31st. In parallel, Intel has started manufacturing on a new version of this support chip. Intel now expects to begin shipping the new parts in mid February.

4:30PM Conexant receives an unsolicited, written proposal from a private equity firm, Golden Gate Private Equity, to acquire co at a price in the range of $2.35 to $2.45 per share in cash (CNXT) 2.10 +0.02 : As previously announced, co entered into a definitive merger agreement on January 9, 2011 with Standard Microsystems Corporation (SMSC) and a wholly owned subsidiary of SMSC pursuant to which co stockholders would receive for each share of co common stock $1.125 in cash and a fraction of a share of SMSC common stock equal to $1.125 divided by the volume weighted average price of SMSC common stock for the 20 trading days ending on the second trading day prior to closing, but in no event more than 0.04264 nor less than 0.03489 shares of SMSC common stock.

4:11PM Veeco Instruments beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY11 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (VECO) 45.14 +0.57 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.62 per share, $0.01 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $1.61; revenues rose 151.9% year/year to $300 mln vs the $302.2 mln consensus. Reports Q4 gross margins of 50.2% vs 50.3% consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.02-1.39 vs. $1.45 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees Q1 revs of $215-265 mln vs. $292.56 mln Thomson Reuters consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for FY11, sees EPS of greater than $5.00 vs. $4.96 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees FY11 revs of greater than $1 bln vs. $1.09 bln Thomson Reuters consensus. "Q1 2011 revenues will be lower than Q4 2010 because we are planning to ship 12-20 MOCVD reactors in the new MaxBright "cluster" format, and will not be recording any revenue on these systems in the first quarter. Timing of revenue is also being impacted by the longer order-to-revenue cycle times associated with the high percentage of business currently coming from China, primarily due to customer facility readiness. The average time to convert orders to revenue is currently several months longer in China than in other regions."

3:33PM Semiconductor lagging, holds thus far at first level support (SMH) 35.69 -0.12 : The sector has underperformed as the market slipped back modestly off early highs this afternoon but it has thus far held at first level support noted in The Technical Take at 35.63/35.55 (session low 35.58). A sustained push back through 35.85/35.95 is needed over the short term in order to neutralize the weaker price action off the early high.

11:02AM Flextronics & eSolar announce partnership for design services (FLEX) 7.97 +0.01 : eSolar announced that it has entered into an agreement with Flextronics for design services relating to next generation heliostats and solar collector systems. Flextronics plans to provide electromechanical design services from its location in Plano, Texas to support the future requirements of eSolar.

8:32AM Verizon confirms iPhone 4 availability this Thursday (VZ) 36.31 : Co announces beginning at 7 a.m. EST on Thursday, Feb. 10, iPhone 4 will be available at more than 2,000 Verizon Wireless Communications Stores nationwide and Apple's retail stores. iPhone 4 is available for a suggested retail price of $199.99 for the 16 GB model and $299.99 for the 32 GB model with a new two-year customer agreement. Customers can subscribe to a Nationwide Talk plan (beginning at $39.99 for 450 minutes) or a Nationwide Talk and Text plan (beginning at $59.99 for 450 minutes and includes unlimited text, picture and video messaging), as well as an unlimited Email and Web data plan for $29.99 per month.

Rudolph Technologies (RTEC) announced that it has received multiple system orders from a major Asian foundry and an IDM with fabrication facilities in the U.S. for its latest MetaPULSE-G opaque metrology tool.

Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC) announced the immediate availability of five new comprehensive Intellectual Property Suites to accelerate the design of electronic systems in a variety of industries using the award winning LatticeECP3 FPGA family.

07:22 am Cisco Systems target raised to $24 from $22 at Wunderlich: . Wunderlich is raising their tgt to $24 from $22 as firm believes inventory conditions in commercial channels improved and demand remains firm with enterprise accounts. With respect to their intrinsic value calculation (present value of future earnings), this reflects upward fine-tuning of ests and passage of time. In terms of relative value, their new target reflects multiple expansion to that of the S&P 500 multiple.