From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Participants opted to sit on last week's gains, so the major equity averages spent the entire session chopping along before booking a mixed finish.
Even though the observance of Independence Day yesterday allowed stocks an extra 24 hours to rest after last week's climb -- the strongest in about two years -- the broad market moved sideways today. Underlying action was consistently without leadership.
The major averages saw some selling interest stem from news that analysts at Moody's downgraded Portugal's debt. Moody's has also been reviewing banks in China because audits may have understated the amount of money that the banks doled out to local governments.
Domestic bank stocks were out of favor all session. Their weakness weighed on the overall financial sector, which fell to a 0.6% loss.
Energy stocks were the best performers, as a group. The group was helped by the spike in oil prices during pit trade. Forward contracts saw oil prices push up by 2.1% to almost $96.90 per barrel. Ameron International (AMN 85.08, +18.81) surged in response to a takeover offer from National Oilwell Varco (NOV 80.02, +1.71). Exxon Mobil (XOM 81.60, -0.41) suffered a slight loss, even though reports suggested that a swelling Yellowstone River could complicate the company's efforts to clean it up after an oil leak was discovered recently.
Immucor (BLUD 26.99, +6.26), which will be required by TPG Capital, was another top performer, but the health care sector remained stuck in the red. The group settled with a 0.3% loss.
The dollar caught a nice bid on the back of Portugal's downgrade. At the close of trade, the greenback had advanced 0.6% against a collection of competing currencies, namely the euro, which dropped 0.9% to $1.442.
The only piece of domestic data on today's calendar was a 0.8% increase in factor orders for May. Orders had been expected to increase by 1.0%, though. Foreign data featured underwhelming PMI Services readings. The flow of data will remain slow for the rest of the week, but participants get their hands on a highly anticipated jobs report this coming Friday. The current consensus calls for the headline unemployment rate to remain at 9.1%.
Advancing Sectors: Energy +0.5%, Consumer Discretionary +0.4%, Tech +0.2%, Materials +0.1%
Declining Sectors: Consumer Staples -0.1%, Telecom -0.2%, Health Care -0.3%, Industrials -0.6%, Utilities -0.6%, Financials -0.8%DJ30 -12.90 NASDAQ +9.74 NQ100 +0.4% R2K +0.2% SP400 +0.1% SP500 -1.79 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1296/1.56 bln/1266 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1462/907 mln/1546
1:29PM American Electric unit to partner with Turning Point Solar on the development of the Turning Point Solar generating facility in Noble County (AEP) 37.76 -0.42 : AEP Ohio entered into a participation agreement with Turning Point Solar, a joint venture of Agile Energy and New Harvest Ventures, to cooperate on the development of one of the largest solar generating facility east of the Mississippi River. Construction and commercial operation of the facility will be phased in over three years with construction expected to begin in the summer of 2012 and finishing in 2015.
12:49PM GT Solar receives $81.7 mln in new orders for polysilicon production equipment and technology (SOLR) 16.80 +0.62 : The recent orders include GT's hydrochlorination equipment used for the production of TCS as well as other polysilicon production equipment. The orders will be included in GT Solar's backlog for its first quarter of FY12, which ended on July 2, 2011.
Microsoft (MSFT) and Wistron have executed a patent agreement that provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for Wistron's tablets, mobile phones, e-readers and other consumer devices running the Android or Chrome platform. Although the contents of the agreement have not been disclosed, the parties indicate that Microsoft will receive royalties from Wistron under the agreement.
8:32AM Marvell increases share repurchase program by $500 million to $1.5 billion (MRVL) 15.11 : "We continue to be confident in our growth prospects and our ability to generate significant cash flows. Combined with our strong balance sheet, we believe this increase in the share repurchase is consistent with our plan to return value to our shareholders." The repurchases, which are expected to be funded from Marvell's current cash and short-term investments position that stood at approximately $2.3 billion as of April 30, 2011, may occur in open market, privately negotiated or block transactions.
Marvell (MRVL) announced that four of the six smartphones selected by China Mobile (CHL) in its first round of smartphone purchasing are powered by the Marvell PXA920 single-chip solution.
8:31AM Advanced Energy lowers Q2 rev guidance below consensus; sees EPS at the low end of, or slightly lower than previous range (AEIS) 15.02 : Co lowers Q2 guidance; lowers Q2 rev guidance to $137-140 mln from $148-160 mln vs $153.35 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; with earnings at the low end of, or slightly lower than $0.36-0.44 vs. the $0.42 consensus. "The performance of our renewables business drove our lower than expected second quarter rev, while our thin film business performed in-line with our expectations. Our results were primarily impacted by changing solar market conditions driven by panel price declines, short lead-times for components, and permitting and financing delays. These trends are causing some customers to push-out purchases until panel prices stabilize, leading to the postponement of construction of their projects. Additionally, changing incentive programs in certain regions, coupled with increasing competition, affected the quarter and continue to be ongoing industry dynamics. While we are disappointed in our renewables results this quarter, our recently-announced large project wins reinforce our confidence in our strategy of selling based on LCOE (levelized cost of energy), which we believe will continue to differentiate us from our competitors."
Xilinx (XLNX) announced that Logicview Electronic Technology has selected Virtex-6 FPGAs for the co's next-generation prototyping system and hardware emulation platform slated for introduction in early 2012.
# Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC) announced that its LatticeECP3 FPGA family is compliant with the PCI Express 2.0 specification at 2.5Gbps.
Wi-LAN (WILN) announced that the co and Texas Instruments (TXN) reached an agreement to end litigation regarding Bluetooth in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Terms of the agreement, including financial amounts to be paid to WiLAN, are confidential.
08:58 am Riverbed Technology downgraded to Perform at Oppenheimer: . Oppenheimer downgrades RVBD to Perform from Outperform. While they are not calling the top on shares and remain constructive on the co's long-term fundamentals, they feel the recent price run-up limits near-term upside potential. They believe co is poised to deliver a strong second quarter based on their channel checks, and feels that the co is well positioned to benefit long-term from its leadership in the WOC market. That said, with valuation less appealing at current levels and a 2012 catalyst not yet established, OPCO feels it would be appropriate for investors to take profits.
08:57 am Freescale Semi initiated with a Outperform at Oppenheimer; tgt $24: . Oppenheimer initiates FSL with a Outperform and price target of $24. Following five years of transformation as a private co, FSL went public May 25. FSL's core embedded processor, microcontroller, and RF/analog/sensor products target the automotive, communications, industrial and consumer markets. Turnaround efforts appear to have taken root and FSL is back in growth/share gain mode, with particular traction/upside in its largest end-market, automotive. Additionally, deleveraging and continued consolidation efforts appear poised to push material margin expansion into 2013-a rare thing in semis at this point in the cycle.
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