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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 14-Oct-11The S&P 500 overcame resistance on Friday to score another strong gain, contributing to the broad market's best weekly performance since July 2009. A positive tone among market participants was perpetuated by more buying in Europe, where the continent's major bourses extended their recent rally. On Friday, Britain's FTSE advanced 1.2%, but gained more than 3% for the week. France's CAC clmbed 1.0% in the week's final session, but 4% over the past five trading days. A 0.9% advance by the Germany's DAX on Friday helped fuel a 5% weekly gain. Such strength reflected improved sentiment in the eurozone, where concerns about fiscal and financial conditions in both the peripheral and core constituents have threatened confidence for months. A commitment early this week by leading eurozone officials to develop a comprehensive plan intended to stabilize precarious conditions and shore up capital at European banks sent a strong signal to global investors. It also got the week started on a strong note -- the stock market rallied more than 3% on Monday for its best single-session percentage gain in almost seven weeks. Following that heady move, trade became more subdued on Tuesday. Participants kept their focus on Europe as Slovakia moved to vote on the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). Country officials actually voted down the plan Tuesday night in conjunction with a no confidence vote for Slovakia's prime minister, but there remained a belief that the EFSF will eventually win approval. Tuesday also ushered in the unofficial start of earnings season when Dow component Alcoa (AA 10.26, +0.16) announced its latest quarterly results after the close. Some regarded the fact that the company came short of the consensus earnings estimate as an ominous sign. Minutes from the most recent FOMC meeting were released Wednesday, but the release was essentially a non-event since it offered no new insight into the mindset of the monetary policy setting committee. JPMorgan Chase (JPM 31.89, +0.29) was bid up aggressively ahead of its quarterly announcement on Thursday morning. The diversified financial services giant posted earnings that exceeded what Wall Street had widely expected, but the dubious quality of that beat was a focus of analysts. Concerted selling caused the stock to drop sharply. Given that JPMorgan Chase is widely regarded as the best in its class, many other banks were implicated. The result was a near 5% drop for the KBW Bank Index, which only made a half-hearted attempt to rebound on Friday, when it advanced a relatively tame 0.7%. Another weekly initial jobless claims count narrowly above 400,000 -- 404,000 to be specific -- had little impact on action during Thursday's trade, but that's mostly because the tally was right in stride with the 406,000 claims that had been widely expected. A superior report from Google (GOOG 591.68, +32.69) helped close out the week on a strong note. Both the top and bottom line bested what had been expected. That sent the stock to its highest level in more than one month and inspired buying in other large-cap tech issues. Collectively, tech stocks climbed 2.1% on Friday. Since tech is the largest sector by market weight, its strength helped the S&P 500 stage a late climb that took it past the 1220 line, which had been a point of formidable resistance at the start of the session and earlier in the week. Energy stocks were the best performers on Friday. Their 3.6% climb was helped along by a 3.2% spike in oil prices to almost $87 per barrel. Oil prices ended the week about 5% above where they began it. In the backdrop of Friday's action were some encouraging retail sales numbers. Overall retail sales for September increased by 1.1%, while sales less autos increased by 0.6%. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected respective increases of 0.6% and 0.3%. Not only did the September numbers exceed expectations, but they also marked the strongest increases since the first quarter. Friday's advance marked the fourth gain in five sessions, helping the S&P 500 score a 6% weekly gain. Perhaps more impressive is that the stock market has now advanced in seven of the past nine sessions for a cumulative gain of more than 11%. ..Nasdaq 100 +1.9%. ..S&P Midcap 400 +1.9%. ..Russell 2000 +2.0%.

 
 Index	  Started Week	Ended Week  Change  % Change  YTD % 
 DJIA	    11103.12	11644.49    541.37     4.9    0.6 
 Nasdaq	     2479.35	 2667.85    188.50     7.6    0.6 
 S&P 500	     1155.46	 1224.58     69.12     6.0   -2.6 
 Russell 2000  656.21	  712.38     56.17     8.6   -9.1

4:45PM Sprint statement on launch day ales of iPhone 4S and iPhone 4; its best ever day of sales in retail, web and telesales for a device family in Sprint history (S) 2.79 +0.01 : Co began selling iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 in Sprint retail stores nationwide this morning at 8:00am local time. Sprint is the only U.S. carrier to offer new and existing customers the iPhone experience with unlimited data plans starting at just $79.99 per month. Fared Adib, Sprint Product Chief, issued the following statement: "Sprint today reported its best ever day of sales in retail, web and telesales for a device family in Sprint history with the launch of iPhone 4S and iPhone 4. We reached this milestone at approximately noon CT/1pm ET. The response to this device by current and new customers has surpassed our expectations and validates our customers' desire for a truly unlimited data pricing plan."

Last night, Google (GOOG $593.60 +34.61) reported third quarter earnings of $9.72 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.95 better than the consensus of $8.77, while net revenue (subtracting traffic acquisition costs) rose 37% YoY to $7.51 billion versus the $7.21 billion consensus. Gross revenues rose 33.4% year/year to $9.72 billion versus the $9.45 billion consensus. Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 28% over the third quarter of 2010 and increased approximately 13% over the second quarter of 2011. Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 5% over the third quarter of 2010 and decreased approximately 5% over the second quarter of 2011. Operating expenses, other than cost of revenues, were $3.28 billion in 3Q11, or 34% of revenues, compared to $2.19 billion in the third quarter of 2010, or 30% of revenues. As of Sept 30, 2011, cash, cash equivalents, and short-term marketable securities were $42.6 billion. On a worldwide basis, Google employed 31,353 full-time employees as of September 30, 2011, up from 28,768 full-time employees as of June 30, 2011. Google+ is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 mln user mark.

Microchip (MCHP $33.75 -1.56) sees second quarter revenues of $340.6 million versus the $360.2 million Capital IQ consensus with EPS of $0.45-0.47 versus the $0.52 consensus. The company said, "Our net sales activity in the September quarter did not progress as we originally expected. Entering the September quarter we anticipated that business conditions would continue to be impacted by weak, broad-based demand conditions, but would begin to improve towards the latter part of the quarter from the seasonal Christmas builds in Asia. Instead we experienced incrementally stronger headwinds and saw no seasonal Christmas build, which in turn adversely impacted all of our product lines and sales channels.

10:49 am Consumer Sentiment Falls in September, Outlook on the Economy Weakens
The preliminary reading of the October University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index dropped from 59.4 in September to 57.5 in October. The Briefing.com consensus expected consumer sentiment to increase modestly to 60.0.

The consumer expectations index fell to its lowest level since May 1980, dropping from 49.4 in September to 47.0 in October. To put that into perspective, when the U.S. was in its worst recession since the Great Depression, consumers were less concerned about the future than they are today. This is most likely the result of media reports constantly flashing high probabilities of another recession and not from economic fundamentals.

The current economic conditions index fell to 73.8 in October from 74.9 in September. While the drop in current conditions is disappointing, it follows an unexpected, and undeserved, increase in September. The current level is close to where we expect it to be considering weakness in equity prices and employment growth.

Fortunately, the drag on sentiment will most likely not have an adverse effect on consumption. Consumption tends to follow income, and income growth, while weak, remains positive.

10:47 am S&P Tech Sector Over One Percent Higher, Outperforming Broader Market

The tech sector is trading higher today, outpacing gains in the broader market. Semiconductors are showing relative weakness, however, with the Philly Semi Index trading only 0.3% lower. LRCX (-1.6%) is a notable laggard in that chip index. Among other major indices, the S&P 500 is trading 1.0% higher, while the NASDAQ is trading 1.2% higher. The QQQ, meanwhile, is trading 1.4% higher. Among tech bellwethers, GOOG (+6.2%) is showing notable strength.

In earnings, GOOG (+6.2%) posted a sizeable Q3 beat (EPS $0.95 better than the consensus of $8.77 and net revs rose 37% year/year to $7.51 bln vs. the $7.21 bln consensus). Elsewhere, MCHP (-4.3%) guided Q2 lower, while SAP (+2.6%) issued upside guidance.

In news, ZYNGA disclosed that it will move forward with its IPO. COOL (+5.0%) and GLUU (+6.9%) are trading higher on the news.

Among rumors, there's renewed GOOG (+6.2%) for AKAM (-1.1%) chatter making the rounds. Separately, we are hearing NTCT (+4.6%) takeover speculation.

Among notable analyst upgrades this morning, RAX (+1.2%) was upgraded to Buy at Goldman, NTES (+1.6%) was upgraded to Overweight at Piper Jaffray, and BRCM (+2.6%) was upgraded to Outperform at Baird. In downgrades, FXCM (-7.1%) was downgraded to Sell at Citigroup and ADTN (+6.6%) was upgraded to Buy at Jefferies.