From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Mixed action among energy, financial, and tech stocks, which are frequent drivers of broad market action, left the major equity averages to settle the trading day in underwhelming fashion after some early buying gave stocks a solid start to the session.
On the heels of their sixth straight weekly loss, stocks attracted some relief buying this morning. The bid came even though varied performances abroad made for a muddled backdrop. No domestic data were released and corporate news was mostly made up of merger and acquisition activity, which featured the purchase of Timberland (TBL 43.20, +13.21) by VF Corp (VFC 101.01, +9.21) for $43 per share, the $33 per share bid for EMS Tech (ELMG 32.80, +8.00) by Honeywell (HON 55.71, +0.18), and the joining of Gerber Scientific (GRB 10.99, +2.87) and Vector Capital in a deal that will give GRB stockholders $11 per share.
Early trade saw energy stocks move higher and financials falter, but the two sectors eventually saw their fortunes reverse. In turn, financials rallied out of the red to finish the with a 1.0% gain while energy stocks ended the day with a 1.4% loss. Energy stocks were hurt by a drop in oil prices, which were quoted 2.0% lower at $97.30 per barrel at the end of pit trade.
Tech stocks, which represent the largest sector by market weight, were quiet for the entire session. As a group, they closed unchanged for the session.
A lack of collective direction left the stock market to drift to a loss, which was stemmed only after a new three-month intraday low was set.
The dollar spent the entire day in the red, but that failed to convert participants into full-fledged buyers. In fact, the dollar's weakness seemed to be of little overall concern to the market. Even after S&P took Greece's debt rating deeper into junk territory by reducing it to CCC, the greenback was unable to overcome the euro. At the end of the trading day, the euro was quoted at $1.441, up 0.5%. More impressive is the 0.9% gain sported by the sterling pound, which was quoted at $1.637 at days end.
The mixture of slow summer trading with so few catalysts may have kept trading volume on the NYSE below 1 billion shares, but overall participation wasn't by any means paltry. In fact, participation on the Big Board took share volume above 900 million shares.
Advancing Sectors: Financials (+1.0%), Telecom (+0.7%), Utilities (+0.4%), Health Care (+0.4%), Consumer Staples (+0.3%), Industrials (+0.1%)
Unchanged: Tech
Declining Issues: Consumer Discretionary (-0.2%), Materials (-0.6%), Energy (-1.4%)DJ30 +1.06 NASDAQ -4.04 NQ100 +0.1% R2K -0.3% SP400 -0.3% SP500 +0.85 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 940/1.86 bln/1673 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1373/908 mln/1706
5:40PM GT Solar raises Q1 earnings and revs guidance; reiterates FY12 guidance and raises backlog expectations for FY12 (SOLR) 12.19 -0.21 : Co raises Q1 EPS guidance to ~$0.30 vs. $0.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate up from prior $0.08-0.11; co raises revs guidance to $225 mln vs. $154.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, up from prior guidance of $140-150 mln. Co reiterated FY12 guidance provided on May 24, 2011 of EPS at $1.55-1.85 vs. $ 1.76 consensus, sees revs at $1-1.1 bln vs. $899 mln consensus. In addition, given the significant number of orders it has received thus far in the first quarter of fiscal 2012, the company now expects its backlog at the end of fiscal 2012 to be at least $1.6 billion. Previously, it had estimated its backlog would be above $1 billion at the end of fiscal 2012.
4:15PM Hewlett-Packard announced organizational changes; co will eliminate CAO role (HPQ) 34.65 -0.45 : Co announced organizational changes that will more closely align its corporate structure with the strategy it announced in March. Ann Livermore has been elected to the HP board... As part of the realignment to improve the company's focus on customer-facing businesses, HP will streamline its administrative operations. HP will eliminate the chief administration officer role and broaden the role of its chief information officer. As a result, Pete Bocian, executive vice president and chief administrative officer, is leaving HP, effective immediately. The functions that make up that organization will be subsumed within other parts of HP. In addition, Randy Mott, executive vice president and chief information officer, is leaving HP effective immediately. Co will conduct a search for a successor. The company thanks Pete and Randy for their efforts and wishes them the best in their next endeavors.
8:39AM GT Solar announces multi-year sapphire material contract with Exotic Electro-Optics (SOLR) 12.41 : Co announces that its subsidiary, GT Crystal Systems, has signed a multi-year contract valued at $3.75 million with Exotic Electro-Optics, a subsidiary of II-VI (IIVI). Under the terms of the contract, GT Crystal Systems will provide large sapphire blanks to EEO for a US-based defense program.
Veeco Instruments (VECO) announced that it has been awarded $4 mln in R&D Matching Funds by the U.S. Department of Energy to support high-efficiency solid state lighting projects.
Integrated Device Technology (IDTI) announced that it has delivered the industry's first single-chip enterprise-class flash controller with native PCIe(R). The controller was co-developed with Micron Technology (MU) for exclusive use in Micron's recently announced P320h PCIe solid-state storage system.
6:02AM Tower Semicon sees Q2 revs above consensus (TSEM) 1.04 : Co issues upside guidance for Q2 (Jun), sees Q2 (Jun) revs of $136-142 mln vs. $133.06 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. The mid-range of the current guidance is a record high since inception and represents a 15% increase from previous quarter revenues of $120.6 mln and an 11% increase YoY.
Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC) and Flexibilis Oy announced the immediate availability of the Flexibilis Ethernet Switch IP cores.
AMD (AMD) announced a new set of software development tools and solutions to enable developers to optimize their applications for OpenCL standards.
SANYO Semiconductor,an ON Semiconductor (ONNN) company, announced the introduction of LC823425, an audio processing solution for portable devices such as IC recorders.
1:18AM Rambus Chairman steps down due to increased demands of his responsibilities at Benchmark Capital and its portfolio cos; director Thomas Bentley has been elected by the Board to succeed Bruce Dunlevie as chairman (RMBS) 13.58 :
07:18 am TTM Tech upgraded to Strong Buy at Needham: . Needham upgrades TTMI to Strong Buy from Buy as the co remains one of the best run companies in their universe, and boasts an impressive customer list with some of the leading players in tech, all while operating at the vanguard of a highly consolidated space. The firm says, any opportunity to pick up such a high-quality company at such a discount should be seized upon. TTMI On Sale. Firm says in in recent weeks as TTMI has been slammed under a litany of thinly validated derivative calls, including Apple production, the company's only 10% customer, networking concerns (34% of revenue) after negative comments from Ciena (believe not even a customer), and Juniper, as well as general macro-economic concerns both here and abroad. Firm says at $13.37 TTMI is trading just 2x tangible book, less than 8x this year's earnings, and is down over 40% from its 52-week high.
AI
Market Data 
Markets 
