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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Aggressive selling resumed today, causing the Dow to drop 500 points, the Nasdaq Composite to plummet 5%, and the S&P 500 to sink 60 points to 1200 for its worst single-session performance in more than two years.

Ongoing concerns about the global economy remained a driving force in today's sell-off, which was steady and orderly. Losses were ushered in with heavy share volume, and left the S&P 500 at its lowest level in nine months, or about 12% below its early May high.

Even safe havens like gold and silver failed to escape selling pressure as traders opted to sell their profitable picks in order to meet margin calls on other holdings. Gold settled lower by 0.5% at $1658.20 per ounce after it had rallied to a new all-time high at $1684.90 per ounce. Silver sank 5.6% to $39.42 after it had hit a three-month high of $42.30 per ounce.

The scope of this session's slide has many wondering what the market has in store tomorrow, when the official nonfarm payrolls report will be released. Today, though, participants were dealt a weekly initial jobless claims tally of 400,000, which isn't much better than the 405,000 initial claims that had been broadly expected among economists polled by Briefing.com.

Renewed macro tension in Europe prompted the European Central Bank President Trichet to provide markets with additional liquidity with an extension of maturities related to financing operations. In a similar vein, Japan expanded its asset purchase plan, but also intervened in the yen, which tumbled more than 3% against the greenback before it could pare some of that loss. Weakness in the yen and euro helped drive the Dollar Index 1.8% higher.

Every single sector in the S&P 500 fell more than 3% today. Materials and energy stocks suffered the worst of it all. The two sectors sank 6.6% and 6.8%, respectively.

Retailers weren't far behind, based on the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 48.55, -3.38), which fell 6.5%. The group's weakness came not only because of broad market weakness, but also from a generally uninspiring batch of monthly same-store sales results. Although it didn't offer any monthly metric, teen apparel and accessories retailer Aeropostale (ARO 12.53, -3.99) saw almost one quarter of its market cap melt away after the company cut its guidance.

Dow component Kraft (KFT 33.78, -0.52) had gapped up by about 6% to a multi-year high at the open, thanks to news that the company will spin off its North American grocery business, but the blue chip was ultimately imbued by broad market weakness.

Advancing Sectors: (None)
Declining Sectors: Energy -6.8%, Materials -6.6%, Financials -5.2%, Industrials -5.4%, Consumer Discretionary -4.8%, Tech -4.5%, Health Care -3.8%, Telecom -3.3%, Utilities -3.2%, Consumer Staples -3.1%DJ30 -512.76 NASDAQ -136.68 NQ100 -4.6% R2K -6.0% SP400 -5.9% SP500 -60.27 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 203/3.27 bln/2442 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 140/1.82 bln/2968

4:44PM TTM Tech beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (TTMI) 12.34 -1.17 : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.40 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.37; revenues rose 18.0% year/year to $366.1 mln vs the $359.7 mln consensus. Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.32-0.41, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.42 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $365-385 mln vs. $378.34 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:32PM Multi-Fineline beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs below consensus (MFLX) 18.97 -1.00 : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.38 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.32; revenues rose 6.0% year/year to $191.8 mln vs the $191.1 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $190-210 mln vs. $217.76 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, and gross margin to range between 11 and 12 percent based on the projected product mix and sales volume.

4:31PM Nanometrics announced that Samsung Electronics has accepted its UniFire 7900 metrology system for process control of advanced wafer scale packaging (NANO) 14.31 -1.29 :

4:21PM MIPS Tech misses by $0.03, misses on revs (MIPS) 6.10 -0.71 : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.07; revenues fell 24.5% year/year to $17.6 mln vs the $19.7 mln consensus. "We had strong results for our fiscal year, but our fourth quarter proved to be more challenging than we expected. Despite macroeconomic uncertainty, we remain confident in the market opportunity, and we are taking the steps necessary to achieve long-term success."

4:21PM STEC Inc announces a stock repurchase program of up to $15 mln (STEC) 9.44 -0.77 :

4:19PM Microchip beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (MCHP) : Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.55 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.54; revenues rose 4.9% year/year to $374.5 mln vs the $376.4 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.50-0.54 vs. $0.51 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $352.0-370.8 mln vs. $366.34 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:09PM First Solar misses by $0.22, misses on revs; guides FY11 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (FSLR) 107.94 -7.31 : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.70 per share, $0.22 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.92; revenues fell 9.4% year/year to $533 mln vs the $583.1 mln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for FY11, sees EPS of $9.00-9.50 vs. $9.36 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY11 revs of $3600-3700 mln vs. $3.74 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:02PM Rubicon Tech beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; announces $25 mln common stock repurchase (RBCN) 12.80 : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.59 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.54; revenues rose 173.9% year/year to $43 mln vs the $42.7 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.23-0.30 vs. $0.49 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $28-34 mln vs. $44.99 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:02PM Brooks Automation reports EPS in-line, beats on revs (BRKS) 8.64 -0.56 : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.36 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.36; revenues rose 18.7% year/year to $186.1 mln vs the $182.2 mln consensus.

Trina Solar Limited (TSL) announced that its subsidiary, Changzhou Trina Solar Energy Co has signed supply agreements with Huanghe Hydropower Development, a subsidiary of China Power Investment Corporation, for two ground-mounted solar projects in China for a total of 30 MW PV modules. Co will supply ~20 MW of PV modules for the Golmud project, of which delivery commenced in June and is expected to extend through August of this year.

7:18AM Anadigics beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line (ANAD) 3.07 : Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.16); revenues fell 31.1% year/year to $35.6 mln vs the $35.7 mln consensus.

2:53AM Tower Semicon beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs above consensus (TSEM) 1.06 : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.15 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.12; revenues rose 11.1% year/year to $139.7 mln vs the $139.9 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $173-183 mln vs. $163.55 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

09:35 am MEMC Elec downgraded to Hold at Kaufman Bros; tgt lowered to $7: . Kaufman Bros downgrades WFR to Hold from Buy and lowers their tgt to $7 from $10 following earnigns saying one time items hide operational weakness. Firm says end market weakness is likely to be long lasting