From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : The stock market dropped dramatically in the early going as participants responded to a global sell-off, but buyers gradually stepped in with a bid that helped stocks slash losses.
The S&P 500 was down as much as 2.7% to a new two-month low this morning, but it settled the session with a more moderate loss on the order of 1%. The opening sell-off stemmed from widespread weakness among the major market averages abroad, namely Japan's Nikkei, which followed up its 6% loss in the prior session with an overnight dive of 10.6%. Explosions at nuclear facilities and threats of radiation have stoked selling in Japan and left the Nikkei to trade at a new one-year low.
The breadth of selling interest left few asset classes unscathed. As such, the CRB Commodity Index sank 3.6% to suffer its worst single-session loss since November. Among the more widely tracked commodities, oil prices dropped 4.0% to $97.18 per barrel. Weekly oil inventory data is due tomorrow morning. Not even precious metals were sparred from the sell-off; gold prices fell 2.2% to $1392.90 per ounce and silver slumped 4.8% to settle pit trade at $34.11 per ounce.
While many commodities came under severe pressure, basic materials stocks were actually leaders in the equity market's rally. The materials sector was down more than 3% at the open, but finished with a loss of less than 0.2%.
Netflix (NFLX 217.11, +15.91) distinguished itself by spiking to a gain of almost 8% as the rest of the market could only cut losses, let alone advance. The move was the stock's strongest in more than a month and was owed to an analyst upgrade at Goldman Sachs.
Amid the stock market's rebound the greenback gave back an early gain for a flat finish. Interestingly, the yen advanced despite the calamity in Japan. It was up 1.1% to 80.75 yen per dollar at the end of the day.
Early strength in Treasuries drove down the yield on the 10-year Note to a three-month low near 3.20%, but strength faded as the stock market rallied. The 10-year Note saw its yield rise to just above 3.30% by day's end.
The latest FOMC statement had little impact on trade. To no real surprise, the FOMC kept its key rate in the range 0.00% to 0.25%. It also announced that it will keep in place its plan to purchase $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011 and will continue to reinvest principal payments from its securities holdings.
Even though commodity prices have been coming down during the past few sessions, the FOMC made note that commodity prices are still up significantly since summer. Still, inflation expectations have remained stable and measures of underlying inflation have been subdued. The FOMC also made note that the recovery is on firmer footing and that overall conditions in the labor market appear to be improving gradually.
Advancing Sectors: (None)
Declining Sectors: Utilities (-1.9%), Tech (-1.6%), Financial (-1.2%), Industrials (-1.1%), Health Care (-1.1%), Consumer Staples (-1.0%), Telecom (-1.0%), Energy (-0.8%), Consumer Discretionary (-0.8%), Materials (-0.2%)DJ30 -137.74 NASDAQ -33.64 NQ100 -1.4% R2K -0.9% SP400 -0.7% SP500 -14.52 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 644/2.36 bln/1970 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 638/1.28 bln/2376
5:04PM First Solar announces that Mark Widmar will join the co as CFO (FSLR) 158.91 +12.00 : Co announced that Mark Widmar will join as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), responsible for the co's global financial operations. Widmar will succeed James Zhu, who has been interim CFO since Jan. 1, 2011. Zhu will retain his role as FSLR's Chief Accounting Officer. Widmar joins FSLR effective April 4, 2011, from Graftech International Ltd., a leading global manufacturer of advanced carbon and graphite materials, where he was CFO and President of the Engineered Solutions segment. Prior to joining Graftech in 2006, Widmar worked at NCR Corporation from 2003 as corporate controller and a business unit CFO
4:20PM NVIDIA announces resignation of Chief Financial Officer David White for personal reasons (NVDA) 17.66 -0.54 : Co announces that David White, chief financial officer, has resigned from the company for personal reasons. He will remain an employee through May 31, 2011. Karen Burns, who currently serves as corporate controller and vice president of tax, will serve as interim CFO.
4:15PM Rambus announces it has renewed its patent license agreement with Toshiba Corporation (RMBS) 19.62 +0.44 : Co announces it has renewed its patent license agreement with Toshiba Corporation. This five year agreement covers Toshiba's products with DRAM memory controllers for SDR, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, and other DRAM devices. Rambus will receive royalty payments based on the shipment of these memory controllers.
10:12AM MEMC Elec update following Japan earthquake: employees were safely evacuated; operations at the facility remain suspended; co expects that shipments from this facility will be delayed over the near term (WFR) 12.98 -0.39 :
8:04AM Sunpower comments on impact to business operations in Japan (SPWRA) 14.65 : Following recent events in Japan, SunPower has communicated with its Japanese suppliers in the affected regions. At this time, the suppliers have indicated that, while certain operations are currently disrupted due to infrastructure issues, they have not sustained major damage to their facilities. Polysilicon from SunPower's Japanese suppliers will account for less than 10 percent of the company's total polysilicon supply for the second quarter of 2011, and SunPower would seek to replace any polysilicon from alternate sources to the extent events in Japan warrant such action. As a result, the company does not expect any change in its 2011 production guidance as a result of this event.
8:02AM Chipmos Technology: ThaiLin elects to convert notes into common shares (IMOS) 8.22 : Co announced that ThaiLin Semiconductor, a 42.9%-owned subsidiary of the Company's majority owned subsidiary, ChipMOS Taiwan, has elected to convert an aggregate of US$19 million in principal amount of the Company's 10% and 8% Senior Convertible Bonds due 2014 into an aggregate of approximately 4.5 million common shares of ChipMOS after giving effect to the Company's 4 to 1 reverse stock split, at the adjusted conversion prices of US$6.0 per share and US$5.0 per share, respectively.
08:50 am Motorola Mobility: Missed tablet opportunity; reducing ests, tgt to $32 at Oppenheimer: . Oppenheimer is reducing its estimates to reflect more modest tablet sell-in assumptions. Firm is also reducing its tgt to $32 (from $36) to account for the missed opportunity. Sales of MMI's Xoom are still in their initial phase, but Opco believes MMI has missed an opportunity to make its mark in the market by initially targeting value vs. volume. And while some of the Xoom's challenges reflect an immature Android tablet OS and Apple's early mover advantage and aggressive pricing, it feels MMI could have done a better job. Its revised estimates (FY11 EPS to $0.22 from $0.35 vs $0.97 consensus) reflect an insignificant tablet contribution going forward.
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