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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Modest broad market gains in the early going were undermined by a weak financial sector, which tumbled more than 2% to drag the rest of the stock market to a new December low.

News flow was lacking this morning, leaving market participants with few trading cues, let alone actual catalysts. In turn, stocks took their direction from Europe's bourses, which were initially bid higher. However, support for Europe's bourses waned into their close. Soured sentiment there exacerbated selling in an already weak financial sector, which continues to wrestle with concerns about the exposure of banks and financial services firms to the precarious financial and economic conditions of Europe. News that European Finance Ministers have agreed to provide 150 billion euros to the International Monetary Fund did nothing to assuage concerns.

Financials likely suffered from some forced selling after shares of Bank of America (BAC 4.99, -0.21) broke below $5 per share to set its lowest level in more than two years. As a group, financials fell 2.3%, which is worse than what any other sector had suffered. The highly influential sector now sits at its lowest level since the end of November. Such weakness weighed heavily on broader market trade, causing the major equity averages to close at new December lows.

The dollar did little during the day, but ultimately ended the session about 0.3% for the better. Interest in the currency picked up into the close.

Treasuries continued their climb, albeit modestly. The bid came despite results from an auction of 2-year Notes that suggested demand had weakened since a series of auctions for longer-term Notes last week. The auction today drew a bid-to-cover of 3.45, dollar demand of $120.8 billion, and an indirect bidder rate of 21.6%.

Participation today was unimpressive, resulting in very little share volume. That's likely owed to the absence of trading catalysts and traders, who are beginning to leave their desks for the holiday season.

Advancing Sectors: (None)
Declining Sectors: Health Care -0.3%, Consumer Staples -0.4%, Telecom -0.7%, Utilities -0.8%, Tech -1.1%, Industrials -1.1%, Consumer Discretionary -1.2%, Energy -1.7%, Materials -1.9%, Financials -2.3%DJ30 -100.13 NASDAQ -32.19 NQ100 -1.0% R2K -1.9% SP400 -1.7% SP500 -14.31 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 569/1.55 bln/2026 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 644/775 mln/2386

9:32AM TranSwitch's TXC-44144 HDplay transceiver integrated circuit has been selected by Universal Microelectronics for the U-HD1080S video switch product (TXCC) 2.84 +0.02 :

8:32AM Xilinx lowers Q3 rev guidance below consensus; raises gross margin guidance (XLNX) 31.21 : Co lowers Q3 sales guidance to -9 to -12% QoQ to ~$488.6-505.2 mln from -3 to -8% QoQ vs $517.19 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Weaker sales during the quarter are driven primarily by a decline in large customer business in the Communications end market. Gross margin is expected to be ~65%. This is a revision from previous guidance of ~64%.

8:02AM Broadcom announced that court has found that Emulex (ELX) infringed two Broadcom patents (BRCM) 28.72 : Co announced today that the United States District Court for the Central District of California has found that Emulex Corporation (ELX) infringed two Broadcom patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 7,058,150 and 7,471,691. The infringing products include Emulex's BladeEngine 2 (BE2), BladeEngine 3 (BE3) and Lancer (XE201) chips and four of Emulex's Fibre Channel switch products. The BE2 and BE3 are 10 Gigabit Ethernet controllers, which are sold as Ethernet controllers and used in Emulex's OneConnect Converged Network Adapters. The Court also rejected Emulex's challenge to the validity of the patents. In addition, the Court rejected Emulex's challenge to an earlier damages award for the '150 patent.

Mattson Technology (MTSN) announced that it has received orders for multiple SUPREMA photoresist strip systems from a leading semiconductor manufacturer.