From Briefing.com: 4:22PM Veeco Instruments announces LG Siltron and Epistar selections of VECO MOCVD systems (VECO) 27.14 -0.03 : Co announced today that LG Siltron, a South Korean epi wafer manufacturer, recently selected the TurboDisc K465i gallium nitride ( Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) System for production of gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si) wafers for power electronics and LED devices. Co also Veeco announced that Epistar recently selected the K465iTM TurboDisc gallium nitride (GaN) Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) System for development of light emitting diodes (LEDs) grown on silicon substrates.
4:05PM Veeco Instruments beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (VECO) 27.14 -0.03 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.72 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.67; revenues fell 36.1% year/year to $191.7 mln vs the $192.99 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.13-0.34, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.40 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $115-140 mln vs. $151.73 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "We don't see signs of near-term improvement in the LED environment and the current overcapacity situation could mean that MOCVD orders remain at these depressed levels for multiple quarters. In Data Storage, while overall market conditions are healthy, the continued consolidation of our customer base will likely mean that order patterns will fluctuate from quarter to quarter."
4:06PM PMC-Sierra reports EPS in-line, misses on revs (PMCS) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.13 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.13; revenues fell 4.2% year/year to $152.6 mln vs the $155.32 mln consensus. "Our annual net revenues grew 3% in a roughly flat year for the semiconductor industry. While difficult conditions impact our near-term outlook, we see good signs of recovery in 2012, including a strong increase in bookings. PMC is well positioned to deliver the infrastructure required to support high traffic growth on storage, optical and mobile networks."
4:30 pm : The major equity averages finished with fractional losses. The lack of news flow resulted in especially light volume.
Market participants returned their focus to the tribulations of Greece amid an absence of economic data and market-moving corporate reports. Frustration and disappointment over Greece's ongoing struggles with austerity measures and creditors prompted participants to clip stocks this morning. More rumors regarding a potential agreement made their rounds, but stocks showed little trust in them.
The euro was able to overcome early weakness and score itself a gain against the greenback. As of session's end, the euro was up 0.2% against the dollar.
Although the broad market remained in the red for the entire session, the major equity averages were able to turn a modest decline into only a fractional loss.
Broad market action may have been lackluster, but energy stocks put on an impressive performance. They staged a steady ascent that saw the sector settle at its session high with a 1.1% gain. What's more, the move came in the face of softer oil prices, which fell nearly 1% to about $97 per barrel.
In contrast, financials lagged for the entire session. They settled with a 0.5% loss, which isn't severe, but it still makes for one of the poorest performances among the 10 major sectors.
Medco Health Solutions (MHS 58.47, -5.14) put on one of the poorest individual performances in response to headlines that about potential disruptions to plan to acquire Express Scripts (ESRX 49.67, -2.42).
Participation in recent months has regularly been very light, but the dearth of headlines today took share volume to an abysmal level. In fact, the near 690 million shares that were traded on the NYSE made today one of the lightest non-holiday sessions of the past decade.
News flow will pick up some tomorrow. On the earnings docket are BP (BP 46.87, +0.30), Coca-Cola (KO 68.03, -0.05), and UBS (UBS 14.37, -0.30). Tuesday also brings a testimony to the Senate Budget Committee from Fed Chairman Bernanke, whose comments are unlikely to deviate from those he delivered last week to the House Budget Committee, and the latest in consumer credit.
Advancing Sectors: Energy +1.1%, Telecom +0.3%
Unchanged: Consumer Staples, Tech
Declining Sectors: Consumer Discretionary -0.1%, Industrials -0.2%, Utilities -0.4%, Health Care -0.4%, Materials -0.5%, Financials -0.5%DJ30 -17.10 NASDAQ -3.67 NQ100 +0.00% R2K -0.3% SP400 -0.1% SP500 -0.57 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1025/1.67 bln/1505 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1235/686 mln/1770
9:48AM Semiconductor Hldrs ETF hovering near low (SMH) 34.22 -0.40 : Noted lagging performance in Nasdaq as Semi SMH weighed. The weakest performers thus far include: INTC -1.4%, ADI -1.4%, ALTR -1.7%, AMD -1.4%, AMKR -1.3%, ATML -2%, BRCM -2%, KLAC -1.8%, LLTC -1.5%, LSI -1.9%, MU -2.5%, MXIM -1.3%, NVLS -2.1%, TER -2%, XLNX -1.5%, MRVL -2.1%, MCHP -1.3%. The SMH is attempting to stabilize near support mentioned in The Technical Take at 34.15/34.10 (session low 34.17).
8:02AM Rambus acquires Unity Semiconductor for $35 mln in cash (RMBS) 7.56 : Co announced it has acquired privately-held Unity Semiconductor, a memory technology company for an aggregate of $35 mln in cash. As part of this acquisition, the Unity team members have joined Rambus to continue developing innovations and solutions for next-generation non-volatile memory. This acquisition will expand the breadth of Rambus' memory technologies and will open up new markets for licensing. The boards of directors of both companies have approved the acquisition and it has closed.
1:38AM Micron appoints Mark Durcan as CEO; appoints Director Robert Switz as Chairman; appoints VP of Worldwide Sales, Mark Adams as President (MU) 7.95 :
11:37 am S&P Tech Sector Down Slightly, In-line With S&P 500
The tech sector is trading lower today, along with losses in the broader market. Semiconductors are showing relative weakness in line with the tech space with the Philly Semi Index trading 1.4% lower. NXPI (-3.3%) is a notable laggard in the chip index. Among other major indices, the SPY is trading 0.2%, while the NASDAQ and the QQQ are trading 0.3% lower on the session. Among tech bellwethers, GOOG (+1.4%) is showing strength, while TXN (-1.3%) is under a little pressure.
In earnings this morning, SOHU (-14.6%) posted a quarterly beat but issued downside guidance, while CYOU (-11.8%) posted a beat with mixed guidance.
In news Friday night, MU (-2.3%) announced its President/COO Marc Durcan will assume the responsibilities of CEO until a successor is appointed by the Board, pursuant to co's bylaw's. This morning, VZ (+0.2%) and CSTR (+0.9%) announced the formation of a joint venture that will offer Redbox new release DVD and Blu-ray Disc rentals combined with a new video on-demand streaming and download service from Verizon.
Among notable analyst upgrades this morning, GLW (+0.3%) was upgraded at Piper Jaffray and RVBD (+4.4%) was upgraded to Outperform at Pacific Crest. Among downgrades, CBEY (-7.0%) was downgraded to Neutral at Citigroup and CHA (-5.1%) was downgraded to Underperform at Credit Suisse.
PMCS (-1.4%) and VECO (+0.2%) are two notable names in tech scheduled to report results today after the close.
AI
Market Data 
Markets 
