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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : 5:19PM Linear Tech almost 3 pts. higher following Q2 financial results; positive Q3 guidance pushes stock higher, as high as $32.70 (LLTC) 29.87 -0.19 :

5:16PM Linear Tech misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs above consensus (LLTC) 29.87 -0.19 : Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.38 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.39; revenues fell 23.3% year/year to $294.33 mln vs the $293.07 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs growth of 4-8% sequentially, which calculates to ~$306.10-317.9 mln vs. $302.76 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"This was an encouraging quarter in a difficult global economic environment. We met the mid point of our guidance and we believe that we are at an inflection point in our business. Bookings, which started slowly, strengthened in December and continued strengthening in January. In these challenging times we maintained strong profitability, reporting operating margins at 45% of sales. Given the improvement in our bookings and our current outlook for the March quarter, we are estimating that we will grow quarterly revenues sequentially in the 4-8% range for our Q3. As we announced earlier, we have acquired Dust Networks, a provider of wireless sensor networks. Although Dust will initially have minimal impact on our quarterly financial results, we are optimistic about growth prospects for Dust in its emerging markets and the synergies between Dust and Linear in bringing rugged, low power, wireless solutions to the industrial and other end-markets."

4:21PM Cree earnings correction: Q3 EPS guidance is not for a loss but is below consensus (CREE) 23.33 +0.43 : Earlier we reported Q3 EPS guidance was for a loss of $0.18-0.25 when it was really for net income of $0.18-0.25 per share. The prior comment has been removed and should have read as follows:

Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.25 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.26; revenues rose 18.3% year/year to $304.1 mln vs the $309.61 mln consensus, non-GAAP gross margin of 35.3%. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.18-0.25, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.30 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $290-310 mln vs. $320.64 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, non-GAAP gross margin 35-36%. Inventory decreased $16.3 mln from Q1 of fiscal 2012 to $187.4 mln and represents 85 days of inventory.

Encouraging data helped stocks set multi-month highs in the early going, but a substantial portion of the market's gains were surrendered by session's end. Participants drove stocks higher in the opening minutes of trade.

Buying interest was fostered by news that China's fourth quarter GDP climbed 8.9% from the prior year. Even though that marked a deceleration from the 9.1% annual rate posted in the prior month, it proved better than what had been anticipated by many. Retail sales and industrial production for December also posted double-digit increases over the year. Early traders also had a positive response to an upbeat economic survey from Germany and a better-than-expected Empire Manufacturing Survey of 13.5 for January.

Although the early advance took the S&P 500 above the 1300 line for the first time since this past summer, the broad market measure was unable to sustain the move. It began to waver as stocks reacted to efforts by the dollar to make up ground against the euro, which had been up nearly 1% this morning, but saw that gain halved by session's end.

After easing off of early highs stocks spent the better part of the session drifting sideways. The action seemingly allowed morning gains to consolidate, but it didn't establish much of a floor since stocks faltered in the final 90 minutes. Still, the broad market managed to hold on for a modest gain.

Financials became a drag on trade. The sector, which was the only one to log a loss, ended the day down 0.8%. An earnings miss from Citigroup (C 28.22, -2.52) and in-line results from Wells Fargo (WFC 29.83, +0.22) made for uninspiring results ahead of announcements from a bevy of financial outfits tomorrow morning.

Advancing Sectors: Health Care +0.7%, Tech +0.7%, Energy +0.7%, Materials +0.6%, Consumer Discretionary +0.5%, Consumer Staples +0.4%, Telecom +0.4%
Unchanged: Utilities
Declining Sectors: Financials -0.8%DJ30 +60.01 NASDAQ +17.41 NQ100 +0.9% R2K +0.2% SP400 +0.3% SP500 +4.58 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1365/1.80 bln/1170 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1841/810 mln/1151

7:32AM Vishay announces acquisition of HiRel Systems, a Specialty Inductor Company for $85 mln (VSH) 10.43 : Co announced the acquisition of HiRel Systems, a supplier of high reliability transformers, inductors, coils, and power conversion products. The purchase price was approximately $85 million, including repayment of HiRel debt, and subject to customary post-closing adjustments.

6:22AM Motorola Mobility: The ALJ ruled in favor of Motorola Mobility, finding no violation for any of the three Apple patents listed in Apple's suit (MMI) 38.45 : Co announces that it has received notice that the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) action brought by Apple (AAPL) against MMI has issued an initial determination. The ALJ ruled in favor of Motorola Mobility, finding no violation for any of the three Apple patents listed in Apple's suit. The ALJ ruled in favor of Motorola Mobility, finding no violation for any of the three Apple patents listed in Apple's suit.

AMD (AMD) announced the first AMD Fusion Center of Innovation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, designed to focus on the innovative developer environment and software performance advancements enabled by heterogeneous computing.

10:46 am S&P Tech Sector Up 1%, Outpacing The Broader Market
The tech sector is trading higher today, ahead of gains in the broader market. Semiconductors is trading inline with strength in the tech space with the Philly Semi Index trading 1.0% higher. STM (+8.1%) is a standout in the chip index. Among other major indices, the S&P 500 is trading 0.7% higher, while the NASDAQ is trading 0.9% higher and the QQQ is 1.0% higher on the session. Among tech bellwethers, AAPL (+1.2%) is showing strength, while VZ (-0.3%) is a notable underperformer.

In earnings, KEM (+1.1%) issued downside guidance Friday night. This morning, CHKP (+4.1%) reported a slight Q4 beat, while CPWR (-7.7%) guided lower.

Among notable analyst upgrades this morning, G (+1.2%) and EXLS (+4.6%) were upgraded to Outperform at Wells Fargo, AMAT (+3.1%) was upgraded to Outperform at RBC Capital, and CSRE (+7.6%) was upgraded to Overweight at JP Morgan. Among downgrades, INTC (+0.6%) was downgraded to Neutral at JP Morgan.

LLTC (+0.5%) is a notable name in tech scheduled to report results today after the close.

10:21 am TD Ameritrade Down On This Morning's Earnings Results (AMTD)
TD Ameritrade (AMTD $16.03 -0.27) reported first quarter earnings of $0.28 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.26.

Revenues fell 0.4% year/year to $653.4 million versus the $672.86 million consensus.

Additionally, co reports net new client assets of $10.2 bln, an annualized growth rate of 11% of beginning client assets; Average client trades per day of ~367,000, essentially flat; Record interest rate sensitive assets of $79 bln, an increase of 16%; and client assets of ~$406 bln, an increase of 5%.

10:13 am Wells Fargo Higher, But Pulling Back, Following This Morning's Earnings Result (WFC)
Wells Fargo (WFC $30.11 +0.50 ) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.73 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.73. Revenues fell 4.1% year/year to $20.61 bln vs the $20.07 bln consensus. "We are pleased with revenue performance in the quarter. Both net interest income, which benefited from the growth in earning assets and an increase in the net interest margin, and noninterest income, which was bolstered by strong mortgage banking and capital markets results, were up this quarter." Businesses generating linked-quarter revenue growth included asset-backed finance, capital markets, commercial banking, commercial real estate, corporate banking, corporate trust, credit card, equipment finance, government and institutional banking, insurance, international, merchant services, mortgage, real estate capital markets and retail sales finance. Net interest income was $10.9 bln, up from $10.5 bln in third quarter 2011. Noninterest income was $9.7 bln, compared with $9.1 bln in third quarter 2011. The $627 mln increase was driven by increases of $531 mln in mortgage banking and $337 mln in trading, debt and equity gains. Card fees declined $333 mln from third quarter due to a $365 mln decline in debit interchange fees partially offset by improved credit card fee revenue. Total loans were $769.6 bln at December 31, 2011, up $9.5 bln from $760.1 bln at Sept 30, 2011.

Capital increased in the fourth quarter, with Tier 1 common equity reaching $95.1 bln under Basel I, or 9.46 percent of risk-weighted assets. Under current Basel III proposals, the Tier 1 common equity ratio was an estimated 7.49 percent. The co redeemed $5.8 bln of trust preferred securities in the quarter, repurchased 27 mln shares of its common stock, plus an additional estimated 6 mln shares through a forward repurchase transaction that will settle in first quarter 2012, and paid a quarterly common stock dividend of $0.12 per share.

"Credit remained strong and within expectations in the fourth quarter. Consumer losses were essentially flat from third quarter while commercial losses increased slightly as we experienced normal period-to-period fluctuation. Based on our current forecasts, we expect continued improvement in credit in 2012."

10:06 am Citigroup Over 3% Lower After Missing Q4 Expectations (C)
This morning, Citigroup (C $29.66 -1.08) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.38 per share, $0.23 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.61.

Revenues fell 6.4% year/year to $17.2 billion versus the $18.55 billion consensus. fourth quarter Net Credit Losses declined 40% y/y to $4.1 bln; Full Year 2011 Net Income of $11.3 bln up 6% y/y; Full Year 2011 revenues of $78.4 bln compared to $86.6 bln in 2010; Citicorp Loans of $465.4 Billion grew 14% y/y; Full Year 2011 Net Credit Losses of $20.0 Billion Compared to $30.9 Billion in 2010; Loan Loss Reserve Release of $1.5 Billion in fourth quarter, down 35% from the Prior Year; Tier 1 Common of $115.1 Billion, Tier 1 Common Ratio Increased to 11.8% Year-over-Year, Book Value Per Share up 8% to $60.78, Tangible Book Value Per Share up 12% to $49.81.

Citicorp revenues of $14.0 billion in the fourth quarter 2011 included $(74) million of CVA/DVA compared to $(1.0) billion in the prior year period. Excluding CVA/DVA, Citicorp revenues of $14.1 billion were 8% below the prior year. The decline was largely due to lower revenues in Securities and Banking, which, excluding CVA/DVA, were 29% below the prior year period and more than offset a 1% growth in RCB revenues and 2% growth in Transaction Services revenues from the prior year period.

Citi Holdings revenues of $2.8 billion in the fourth quarter 2011 were 30% below the prior year period. The decline in Citi Holdings revenues was principally due to the continuing reduction in assets, which decreased $90 billion, or 25%, from the end of 2010. Citi Holdings assets of $269 billion at the end of the fourth quarter 2011 included approximately $45 billion related to Citi's retail partner cards business which, as previously announced, Citi intends to transfer into Citicorp during the first quarter 2012.

Citigroup's net income declined 11% from the fourth quarter 2010 to $1.2 billion in the fourth quarter 2011, reflecting a $1.2 billion decline in year-over-year revenues, a $465 million increase in operating expenses and a $470 million increase in the provision for taxes, which offset a $2.0 billion improvement in the cost of credit from the prior year period. The credit reserve release reflects a lower level of inherent losses remaining in the portfolio. Fourth quarter 2011 expenses included $557 million of legal and related costs and the previously announced repositioning charge of $428 million. Additionally, as previously announced, the $470 million increase in the provision for taxes includes a tax charge of $300 million due to a write-down in the value of Japanese deferred tax assets reflecting legislation in Japan that decreased the corporate income tax rate.

12:53PM MEMC Elec issues statement to clarify its solar plans in Japan (WFR) 4.58 +0.15 : Co commented on various news articles and Internet reports regarding SunEdison's involvement in the Japan solar market. The company is aware of certain media reports during the past 24 hours regarding SunEdison's future plans for solar project development in Japan. While SunEdison remains interested in this market, the company's plans in Japan are not yet firm due to uncertain project economics. Feed-in-tariff rates have not been determined by Japanese officials, and therefore neither project pricing nor project costs can be known at this time. As a result, the size of SunEdison's future investment in solar project development in Japan, if any, has not yet been determined. As the company's plans in this market evolve, appropriate public announcements will be made to keep investors informed.

12:31PM Cirrus Logic vacillating near last week's nine month high of 20.60 (CRUS) 20.60 +1.18 :

9:05AM Magma Design announces SuVolta expands commitment to Magma's FineSim SPICE (LAVA) 7.16 : Co announced today that SuVolta has expanded its business relationship with Magma by entering into a licensing agreement to use the FineSim SPICE multi-CPU circuit simulator.

8:09AM Chipmos Technology reports Dec revs decreased 3.9% y/y to $48.3 mln; Q4 revs $152.3 mln (no ests) (IMOS) 6.79 : Co expects to benefit from stable demand and utilization levels in the first quarter of 2012, with revenue for the full year 2012 increasing approximately 10% compared to the full year 2011. All U.S. figures in this release are based on the exchange rate of NT$30.27 to US$1.00 as of December 30, 2011.