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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : A gradual afternoon ascent helped the broad market slash its loss, but pronounced weakness among tech issues undermined the rebound effort. That left the major equity averages to settle with varied results.

Stocks were dragged down in the early going when participants responded to a reversal by Europe's major bourses, which failed to sustain gains that followed a bank borrowing report from the European Central Bank. Although the report suggested that the needs of banks have been more than adequately met, it also indicated that more firms were in need of funding. The euro was never able to fully overcome selling pressure; it was down 0.5% against the greenback by session's end.

Oracle (ORCL 25.77, -3.40) added to the pessimistic tone of early trade. The software outfit disappointed investors with weaker-than-expected revenue and earnings. The company's quarterly report was further tainted by a tepid outlook. The stock was able to resist efforts to take it to a new 52-week low and even got some relief in late afternoon trade, but the shares still suffered their worst single-session slide in years.

Many other tech stocks were weakened by Oracle's report, such that the overall sector sank to a 2.0% loss. Tech stocks, which make up the largest sector by market cap, weighed heavily on broad market trade. In fact, tech was the only sector in 10 that failed to finish in positive territory, but the S&P 500 still only managed to muster a narrow gain. Meanwhile, the tech-rich Nasdaq was never able to catch up with its counterparts.

Leadership was never clear, but energy stocks helped provide a broad market lift in afternoon trade. Collectively they scored a 1.2% gain with help from higher oil prices, which closed at $98.70 per barrel for a 1.5% gain following an unexpectedly large draw from weekly inventories.

While the broad market was mired in the red for most of the session utilities ascended 1.5%, notching a new 52-week high along the way. Even when excluding dividends utilities have been one of the best performing sectors of the year; they're up more than 13% year to date. Constellation Energy (CEG 39.45, +0.95) came into closer focus when the stock dove in response to headlines that its merger with Exelon (EXC 43.24, +0.91) could be blocked, but that rumor was later dispelled.

A better-than-expected bottom line and a solid future orders increase gave shares of Nike (NKE 96.23, +2.60) strong gains, but not enough to send the stock back to the record high that it had set earlier this month. The rest of the discretionary space mustered only a modest gain.

Data today was limited to November existing home sales numbers, which improved to an annualized rate of 4.42 million units from 4.25 million units, but that was still short of the 5.03 million unit rate that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. Authorities also reported that sales from 2007 through 2010 were revised downward by 14%.

Advancing Sectors: Utilities +1.5%, Energy +1.2%, Consumer Staples +1.1%, Health Care +0.7%, Financials +0.6%, Telecom +0.4%, Materials +0.3%, Consumer Discretionary +0.3%, Industrials +0.2%
Declining Sectors: Tech -2.0%DJ30 +4.16 NASDAQ -25.76 NQ100 -1.4% R2K +0.2% SP400 +0.2% SP500 +2.42 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1255/1.85 bln/1298 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1852/820 mln/1169

4:16PM Aehr Test Systems received order in excess of $1 mln for its ABTSTM high power burn-in system; expected to ship this fiscal year (AEHR) 0.62 -0.04 :

4:03PM Micron misses by $0.09, misses on revs (MU) 5.54 -0.25 : Reports Q1 (Nov) loss of $0.19 per share, $0.09 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.10); revenues rose 20.9% year/year to $2.09 bln vs the $2.12 bln consensus. The company's consolidated gross margin remained at 15 percent for the first quarter of fiscal 2012. Improvements in NAND Flash margins were offset by declines in DRAM. Revenue from sales of NAND Flash products was 6 percent higher in the first quarter of fiscal 2012 compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 due to an 18 percent increase in sales volume partially offset by a 10 percent decrease in average selling prices. Revenue from sales of DRAM products was essentially unchanged in the first quarter of fiscal 2012 compared to the previous quarter, as a 14 percent increase sales volume was offset by a 12 percent decrease in average selling prices. Sales of NOR Flash products were approximately 14 percent of total net sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2012.

10:01AM Benchmark Elec resumes 2010 stock repurchase program (BHE) 13.11 -0.09 : Co announced that it is restarting its 2010 stock repurchase program. The Company has repurchased 4.2 million shares totaling $64 million and has $36 million remaining under the 2010 repurchase program. The Company suspended the repurchase of its common shares in October due to the significant uncertainty regarding the ultimate financial impact of the flooding in Thailand.

Benchmark Electronics (BHE) announced that its Ayudhaya, Thailand facility has restarted operations a week ahead of our planned schedule.

8:02AM Rambus settles stockholder suit related to past stock option backdating (RMBS) 7.25 : Co announced it has agreed to settle one of the two remaining stock option related lawsuits. The settlement will resolve the matter captioned Stuart Steele, v. Rambus originally filed in 2008, related to stock option grants that were not correctly dated or accounted for prior to 2006, with the vast majority of incorrectly dated grants occurring between 1998 and 2001. The case was scheduled to go to trial in March 2012, and Rambus has agreed to settle the claims against it and the individual defendants for $10.85 mln.

09:37 am Cree initiated with a Buy at Needham: . Needham initiates CREE with a Buy. Firm notes co is an ideal name for investors looking to add exposure to this growing area. While they believe the near-term sector weakness will persist into 2012, they are positive on the long-term growth trajectory of LED in general lighting, especially in the commercial sector, and they believe co will see outsized benefit from accelerated market adoption. With the stock down 70% over the last 12 months on sector weakness, they believe now is a good time to own this marquee name before evidence of LED adoption becomes apparent and drives the share price higher.

09:37 am Aixtron initiated with a Hold at Needham: . Needham initiates AIXG with a Hold. Firm notes the co has steadily lost market share over the last 3 years and believes Veeco beat co by 1 point of share in 2011. Without any meaningful catalyst, they believe the two competitors will split evenly the MOCVD sector going forward. Due to substantial over-investment of capacity over the last 2 years, they believe MOCVD shipments will remain depressed over the next 12-18 months, despite continued growth of LED demand.

09:49 am Oracle Trading Significantly Lower Following Earnings/Guidance Results Late Yesterday (ORCL)
Oracle (ORCL $25.43 -3.74) is trading significantly lower following its earnings/guidance results that were released after the close yesterday.

The company reported second quarter earnings of $0.54 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.57.

Revenues rose 1.9% year/year to $8.81 billion versus the $9.23 billion consensus.

Second quarter new software license revenue growth of 9% vs guidance in the range from 6% to 16%. "Non-GAAP operating margins increased to 45% in second quarter, and we expect those margins to keep growing... We have expanded our worldwide sales capacity by adding over 1,700 sales professionals in the first half of this fiscal year," said Oracle President, Mark Hurd. "We believe that this increase in our field organization combined with innovative new products like Fusion Cloud ERP and Cloud CRM will enable solid organic growth in the second half of this year... Sales of our engineered systems accelerated in second quarter. Exadata growth was well over 100% compared to last year, and Exalogic grew more than 100% on a sequential basis. We shipped our first SPARC SuperCluster in second quarter and expect to begin deliveries of our Exalytics system and the Oracle Big Data Appliance in third quarter."

Oracle announced that its Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of up to an additional $5.0 bln of common stock under its existing share repurchase program in future quarters.

On its conference call, the company said it sees third quarter Non-GAAP EPS of $0.55-0.58 vs. $0.59 CIQ Estimates. Company said it sees new software license growth ranging b/w 2-12% in constant currency and 0 to 10% in U.S. dollars. Sees hardware product revenue growth rate of (14%) to (4%), in constant currency or (15%) to (5%) in U.S. dollars and that does not include the hardware support revenue. Company sees total Non-GAAP revenue growth of 3-7% in constant currency, and 1-5% in U.S. dollars. On a GAAP basis co sees total revenue growth 4-7% in constant currency, and 2-5% in U.S. dollars.