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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 16-Mar-12The broad market spent Friday plodding along narrowly above the neutral line, despite quadruple witching options expiration. The lackluster action comes as stocks trade at multi-year highs.

Gains in the final session of the week were only modest, but they helped the S&P 500 secure a weekly gain of more than 2%. That stands as the stock market's fifth straight weekly gain, or tenth in 11 tries. That hot streak has the S&P 500 up more than 11% year to date and sitting above 1400 for the first time since mid-2008. Along the way the stock market has managed to overcome precarious conditions in Europe, ongoing concerns about global growth prospects, and debate over the plausibility of additional monetary stimulus.

The S&P 500 now trades at about 14.3x trailing 12-month earnings and 13.0x forward earnings. The 5-year historical price-to-trailing earnings average stands at about 16.5, while the 5-year historical average for price-to-forward earnings is about 13.2.

The latest Investor Sentiment Survey from the American Association of Individual Investors suggests that more than 45% of members remain bullish. Its long-term average is closer to 39%.

As a corollary, the Volatility Index is back near its multi-year lows beneath 15. In little more than a week the euphemistically labeled Fear Gauge is down approximately 30%.

Financials had a quiet Friday, but were the primary drivers behind the stock market's advance this week. Conveying its confidence and effectively hinting at satisfactory stress test results, JPMorgan Chase (JPM 44.57, -0.13) announced earlier this week a dividend increase and a $15 billion share repurchase authorization. That brought about concerted buying interest among bank stocks, which collectively climbed close to 7% this week. Citigroup (C 36.69, +0.42) sat out some of that due to disappointment that it, along with three other outfits from a total of 19 firms, came short of certain targets set in the latest round of government mandated stress tests. Collectively, the Financial sector's constituents climbed nearly 6% this week. Year to date, the sector is up more than 20%, which is better than what any other sector has achieved.

Tech, the largest sector by market weight, isn't far behind the Financial sector in terms of its performance in 2012. Year to date tech stocks are collectively up almost 20% after a 3% advance this week. Apple (AAPL 585.57, +0.01) has been an absolute juggernaut and a leader for Tech in 2012; even though it is the largest stock by market cap, which is actually greater than the combined weight of both IBM (IBM 206.01, +0.01) and Microsoft (MSFT 32.60, -0.25), the stock has rallied more than 40% year to date. However, since hitting $600 per share the stock has started to waver some.

The belief that the economy is strengthening helped the dollar trade up to its highest level in nearly two months earlier this week. It lost momentum more recently, resulting in a couple of losses that left the greenback to book a weekly loss of about 0.3%.

Fixed Income Focus

Treasuries were trounced on a couple of occasions this week. Their slide sent the yield on the benchmark 10-year Note as high as 2.35%, which was notched early on Friday before it fought to pare its loss. The Note's yield hasn't been that high since October.

There were a few auctions earlier in the week, but none of them generated results that induced buying interest. The offering of 3-year Notes drew a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.44, dollar demand of $110.1 billion, and an indirect bidder participation rate of 34.6%. For comparison, the an average of the past six auctions results in a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.42, dollar demand of $109.4 billion, and an indirect bidder rate of 36.2%.

The 10-year Notes sale drew a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.24, dollar demand of $68.0 billion, and an indirect bidder participation rate of 38.6%. An average of the past six auctions results in a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.07, dollar demand of $67.2 billion, and an indirect bidder participation rate of 44.0%.

The week's final auction, a 30-year Bond sale, drew a bid-to-cover of 2.70, dollar demand of $35.1 billion, and an indirect bidder participation rate of 29.0%. For comparison, an average of the past six auctions results in a bid-to-cover of 2.72, dollar demand of $37.8 billion, and an indirect bidder participation rate of 31.6%.

A Bevy of Economic Reports

The economic calendar this past week was highlighted by the latest FOMC statement. To little surprise the Committee opted to keep the fed funds target rate at 0.00% to 0.25%. It also maintained an outlook that would likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the fed funds rate at least through late 2014. Although the Fed has been accommodative in its policy efforts, there has been a growing belief among market pundits that further stimulus will likely be put on hold because since the economy continues to improve, albeit at a slow pace.

Retail sales in February increased by 1.1% to outpace the upwardly revised 0.6% increase of the prior month. February results were also slightly better than the 1.0% increase that had been widely expected. Excluding autos, retail sales increased by 0.9%. That bested the Briefing.com consensus call for a 0.6% increase, but it still wasn't as strong as the 1.1% climb in the prior month.

Import prices were up 0.4% in February. Excluding oil, import prices were down 0.1%. In the prior month overall import prices and prices less oil increased by 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively. Export prices increased by 0.4%, or 0.5% when excluding agricultural items. Respective increases of 0.2% and 0.5% were experienced in the prior month.

The fourth quarter current account deficit reportedly totaled $124.1 billion. A deficit of $113.8 billion had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com.

Initial jobless claims for the week ended March 10 totaled 351,000. Down 14,000 week over week and not too different than the 355,000 initial claims that had been broadly expected, weekly jobless claims trends continue to suggest improvement in the labor market.

Overall producer prices increased by 0.4% in February, but core producer prices increased by just 0.2%. The general consensus had pegged the increase in overall producer prices at 0.5% and the increase in core producer prices at 0.2%. During the prior month overall producer prices were up only 0.1%, while core producer prices were up 0.4%.

As for consumer prices, they climbed 0.4% in February, while core prices increased by a mere 0.1%. The increase to overall prices was precisely what had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com, but the increase in core prices was actually less than the 0.1% increase that had been generally expected. Both overall prices and core prices had increased by 0.2% in the prior month.

In contrast to the consensus call for a drop to 15.0, the Empire Manufacturing Survey for March improved to 20.2, which stands as its highest level in well over a year. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Fed Survey for March improved to a multi-month high of 12.5, exactly as had been commonly forecasted.

Industrial production in February was flat. That contrasted with the Briefing.com consensus call for a 0.5% increase. Prior month numbers were revised upward to reflect a 0.4% increase, though.

The University of Michigan released its preliminary March reading on consumer sentiment. A reading of 75.8 had been broadly anticipated to follow the one-year high of 75.3 printed in the prior month, but instead the reading eased down to 74.3.

..Nasdaq 100 -0.1%. ..S&P Midcap 400 -0.1%. ..Russell 2000 -0.2%.

 
 Index      Started Week  Ended Week   Change  % Change	YTD % 
 DJIA	     12922.02	  13232.62    310.60	 2.4	8.3 
 Nasdaq	      2988.34	   3055.26     66.92	 2.2   17.3 
 S&P 500	      1370.87	   1404.17     33.30	 2.4   11.7 
 Russell 2000   817.00	    830.18     13.18	 1.6   12.0

NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) introduced the TDA18250A and TDA18260A, its latest high-performance single and dual silicon tuners for cable set-top-boxes covering worldwide digital cable standards.

ReneSola (SOL $2.78 +0.32) reported a fourth quarter loss of $0.43 per share, $0.11 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.32), while revenues fell 51.4% year/year to $187.7 million versus the $147.34 million consensus. The company issued upside guidance for the first quarter with revenues of $180-190 million versus the $153.87 million consensus. Total solar wafer and module shipments in fourth quarter 2011 were 339.9 megawatts, exceeding company guidance and an increase of 3.5% from 328.5 MW in Q3 2011. For the first quarter of 2012, the company expects total solar wafer and module shipments to be in the range of 400-420 MW. For the full year 2012, the co expects total solar wafer and module shipments to be in the range of 1.8-2.0 GW.

09:24 am Microsoft upgraded to Buy at Argus; tgt $39: . Argus upgrades MSFT to Buy from Hold and sets target price at $39 saying with Windows 8 likely to launch in calendar 3Q12, Microsoft may finally have an operating system that can compete in both the PC and tablet environments. Based on early reviews, it looks like the company has gotten the technology right; success will now depend on execution and marketing.