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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Performances among the major equity averages varied today. Data were generally disappointing.

Stocks traded near the neutral line in the early going. The tepid tone came amid mixed action abroad and news that the second estimate of first quarter GDP showed growth of 1.8%, which is unchanged from the advance reading, but less than the 2.0% growth rate that had been expected among economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

Initial jobless claims for the week ended May 21 totaled 424,000. Not only is that up by 10,000 from the prior week, but it exceeds the 400,000 initial claims that had been widely expected.

The dollar was down markedly this morning, but that didn't seem to matter too much to traders in the wake of the data. The greenback pared its loss as the session progressed, but it was still down 0.5% against a basket of competing currencies at the close of trade.

After struggling to find direction for the first couple of hours, stocks began a gradual climb higher. Microsoft (MSFT 24.67, +0.48) and NetApp (NTAP 55.31, +3.58) led the tech-rich Nasdaq. Shares of MSFT were helped by favorable comments about the stock from hedge fund manager David Einhorn while NTAP was aided by a satisfactory quarterly report.

The S&P 500 managed to make a modest advance with help from consumer discretionary stocks (+0.8%) after Tiffany & Co. (TIF 76.04, +6.00) and Guess? (GES 44.57, +4.47) reported impressive quarterly results. Other retailers shared in their strength, such that the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 53.23, +0.87) ascended to a weekly high.

The Dow ended the day at the unchanged mark. Despite strength in MSFT shares, other blue chips traded in mixed fashion.

Small-cap stocks outperformed again. For the second straight session their strength has sent the Russell 2000 to a gain in excess of 1%.

Share volume remains sluggish. The anemic pace will most likely continue tomorrow since many traders will take off early to get a jump on the long, Memorial Day weekend.

Treasuries attracted strong support and closed near session highs. The climb sent the yield on the benchmark 10-year Note down to 3.06%, which makes for a new 2011 low. Gains were helped along in the wake of an auction of 7-year Notes that drew a bid-to-cover of 3.20, dollar demand of $94.0 billion -- the highest since early 2010 -- and an indirect bidder participation rate of 47.6%.

Advancing Sectors: Consumer Discretionary (+0.8%), Tech (+0.6%), Telecom (+0.6%), Energy (+0.5%), Financials (+0.5%), Industrials (+0.4%), Materials (+0.2%), Consumer Staples (+0.2%)
Declining Sectors: Health Care (-0.1%), Utilities (-0.1%)DJ30 +8.10 NASDAQ +21.54 NQ100 +0.7% R2K +1.2% SP400 +0.9% SP500 +5.22 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1830/1.92 bln/712 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2154/861 mln/846

4:40PM Advanced Analogic Tech to be bought by Skyworks (SWKS) for a nominal price of $6.13 per share (AATI) 3.90 +0.06 : Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) signed a definitive agreement to purchase Advanced Analogic Technologies Incorporated (AATI). This acquisition expands Skyworks' portfolio with highly complementary analog semiconductor products including battery chargers, DC/DC converters, voltage regulators and LED drivers. The analog power management market is expected to grow to $12.1 billion in 2014, up from $9.9 billion in 2010 according to Gartner market. Skyworks has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Advanced Analogic Technologies for a nominal price of $6.13 per share, representing a 52 percent premium to AATI's 30-day trailing average. The $6.13 nominal share price consists of $3.68 per share in cash and .08725 of a share of Skyworks common stock for each outstanding share of Advanced Analogic Technologies common stock

4:24PM OmniVision beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q1 (Jul) EPS in-line, revs in-line (OVTI) 36.42 +0.22 : Reports Q4 (Apr) earnings of $0.66 per share, $0.01 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.65. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1 (Jul), sees EPS of 0.64-0.77 vs. $0.69 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees Q1 (Jul) revs of 265-285 vs. $277.22 mln Thomson Reuters consensus.

4:15PM LDK Solar signed a module supply contract with a leading Italy-based solar systems integrator (LDK) 6.58 +0.40 : Co announced that it has signed a module supply contract with a leading Italy-based solar systems integrator. Under the terms of the agreement, LDK Solar will provide 45 megawatts (MW) of solar modules with monthly shipping expected to commence in June 2011.

4:05PM Marvell misses by $0.01, misses on revs (MRVL) 14.58 +0.41 : Reports Q1 (Apr) earnings of $0.29 per share, $0.01 worse than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.30; revenues fell 6.3% year/year to $802 mln vs the $825.6 mln consensus. Co reports Q1 non-GAAP gross margins of 58.5% vs 59% consensus. "The results for our first quarter reflected the typical seasonality of our consumer centric end markets... Even at this low point in the revenue cycle, we were an industry leader in profitability for both operating and cash flow margins, demonstrating the strength of our long-term business model. We remain confident that the investments we are making such as in TD-SCDMA and SSD will result in improved results throughout the year."

1:06PM Suntech Power announced strategic partnership for supply of up to 190MW of solar panels to solarhybrid in 2011 (STP) 7.65 +0.24 : Under the terms outlined in the agreement, Suntech will become solarhybrid's partner and will supply solar panels for the majority of solarhybrid's German project pipeline in 2011. Five solar power plants, which solarhybrid is developing in Germany, will be equipped with 172MW of Suntech solar panels. Two additional projects that solarhybrid is currently developing in Italy (10MW) and Slovakia (6MW) will also be powered by Suntech solar panels.

Broadcom (BRCM) announced in an 8K that as previously disclosed, the remaining defendants in the federal consolidated derivative action captioned In Re Broadcom Corporation Derivative Litigation, Case No. CV-06-3252-R entered into a settlement. On May 23, 2011, the United States District Court for the Central District of California entered an order granting final approval of the settlement.

Micron Technology (MU) announced that early engineering samples are available for its third-generation reduced latency DRAM.

TSMC (TSM) announced that 28nm support within the Open Innovation Platform design infrastructure is fully delivered, as demonstrated by 89 new 28nm designs scheduled to tapeout.

11:49 am NTAP Guides Q1 Above Consensus (NTAP)

NetApp (NTAP $55.54 +3.81) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.59 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.53.

Revenues rose 21.8% year/year to $1.43 billion versus the $1.39 billion consensus.

For the first quarter, the company Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.52-0.57, excluding non-recurring items, versus $0.50 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees first quarter revenue of +26-34% year/year, which calculates to approx. $1.43 billion to $1.52 billion versus $1.4 billion Thomson Reuters consensus.

"NetApp delivered 30% revenue growth, 38% growth in cash from operations and over $1B in non-GAAP operating profit during fiscal 2011. We achieved the largest market share gains in our history and closed a record number of million dollar deals, demonstrating our momentum in the market as enterprise customers increasingly choose NetApp as their vendor of choice for storage virtualization and cloud deployments."