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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Concerns about the implications of continued political impasse in Greece undermined sentiment in the early going and sent stocks sharply lower at the open. Although pressure eased and the broad market slashed its loss in half, sellers redoubled their efforts late in the day to force stocks to finish near session lows.

Seemingly incapable of forming an elected government, Greece stirred sovereign concerns this morning. That drove down Europe's major bourses, lifted debt yields of countries in the eurozone periphery, and pressured the euro, which fell about 0.5% against the greenback to set a new multi-month low.

Financials were a steady drag on trade. The sector settled the session with a 2.1% loss, which is worse than what any other sector suffered. Beyond broad market weakness, investment banks, brokerage outfits, and diversified financial services players were hurt by concerns that a failure to honor austerity plans by jockeying eurozone politicians carries consequences for eurozone debt and broader financial conditions. A recent trading bluner by JPMorgan Chase (JPM 35.79, -1.17) has also tainted the perception of many firms.

Energy stocks were also a steady drag; they suffered a collective loss of 1.6%. As had been the case last week, Energy's weakness came in close connection with another drop in oil prices, which fell to a multi-month low of $93.85 per barrel before it settled pit trade with a loss of 1.3% at $94.76 per barrel.

Without the help of the two highly influential sectors stocks had a harder time generating enough momentum to extend the broad market's recovery effort into late afternoon trade. Instead, the S&P 500 came within a couple of points of last week's close before it rolled over and declined steadily into the close.

The stock market's final descent drove higher the Volatility Index, which was up about 10% to a multi-month high of almost 22 by the day's end.

There wasn't a single sector that scored a gain, but defensive-oriented stocks did a decent job of limiting losses. Utilities declined only 0.3%, while Health Care and Consumer Staples both fell 0.4%. Telecom declined 0.5%. Still, Groupon (GRPN 11.73, +1.84) was a standout by surging almost 20% ahead of its quarterly report.

Treasuries attracted the interest of safety seekers, such that the yield on the benchmark 10-year Note dropped below 1.80% for the first time in a few months. By the closing bell the Note's yield was about 1.78%.

Advancing Sectors: None
Declining Sectors: Utilities -0.3%, Consumer Staples -0.4%, Health Care -0.4%, Telecom -0.5%, Tech -0.9%, Industrials -1.2%, Consumer Discretionary -1.4%, Materials -1.4%, Energy -1.6%, Financials -2.1%DJ30 -125.25 NASDAQ -31.24 NQ100 -1.0% R2K -1.4% SP400 -1.2% SP500 -15.04 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 615/1.66 bln/1923 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 472/802 mln/2578

4:32PM Photronics beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line (PLAB) 5.82 +0.10 : Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.14 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.12; revenues fell 11.7% year/year to $117.5 mln vs the $116.82 mln consensus. Operating margin improves by 270 bps sequentially to 11.3%.

4:10PM Agilent beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides JulQ EPS in-line, revs above consensus; guides FY12 EPS in-line, revs in-line (A) 38.88 -0.57 : Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.78 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.73; revenues rose 3.3% year/year to $1.73 bln vs the $1.71 bln consensus. For Q3 (Jul), co sees EPS of $0.82-0.84, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.83 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.77-1.79 bln vs. $1.76 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY12, sees EPS of $3.18-3.24, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $3.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY12 revs of $6.94-7.00 bln vs. $6.95 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:09PM Groupon reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (GRPN) 11.73 +1.83 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.02 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.02; revenues rose 89.6% year/year to $559.3 mln vs the $530.45 mln consensus. Gross billings, which reflects the gross amounts collected from customers for Groupons sold, excluding any applicable taxes and net of estimated refunds, increased 103% to $1.35 billion in the first quarter 2012, compared with $668.2 million in the first quarter 2011. Free cash flow, a non-GAAP financial measure, was $70.6 million for the first quarter 2012. At the end of the quarter, Groupon had $1.2 billion in cash and cash equivalents and no long-term debt.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $550-590 mln vs. $560.11 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Income from operations for the second quarter 2012 is expected to be between $25 million and $45 million, compared with a loss from operations of $101.0 million in the second quarter 2011.

1:40PM Silicon Labs awaits official complaint before exerting established RF patent portfolio (SLAB) 33.70 -0.59 : Co learned today of MaxLinear's announcement of a declaratory judgment against the company to obtain a ruling that MaxLinear products, such as the MxL301 and MxL601 tuner ICs, do not infringe nineteen patents owned by Silicon Labs. Silicon Labs has not yet received the official complaint, and will determine its response upon review. The company pointed out it has "an extensive patent portfolio in RF-related technologies of more than 200 patents, a heritage of first-of-a-kind innovations in iDTV and other markets, and a track record of vigorously defending its patents against infringement."

10:29AM Research In Motion shows some relative strength against opening broad-based extension lower as buyers take it up into its recent 6-day range high near $12.00 (RIMM) 11.83 +0.05 : Staggered resistance all over the place to the upside (given the consistent daily downtrend), but showing some individual relative strength thus far this morning.

9:03AM NVIDIA and intellectual ventures partner to acquire portfolio of wireless patent assets; terms not disclosed (NVDA) 31.15 : Co announced that they have jointly acquired a set of patents developed and owned by IPWireless. The portfolio comprises approximately 500 patents granted and pending in the wireless communications area, including concepts in LTE, LTE-Advanced and 3G/4G technologies. Terms of the acquisition, which closed on April 30, 2012, were not disclosed.

O2Micro International (OIIM) was issued 22 claims under U.S. patent for its Temperature Detection methodology.

Atmel (ATML) announced that Ingenico has selected Atmel maXTouch touchscreen controllers for its Ingenico iWL200 Series portable payment terminals with touch capability.

Microsemi (MSCC) announced that its radiation-tolerant RTAX-S/SL field programmable gate arrays have been qualified by the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency as Qualified Manufacturers List Class V in accordance with military performance standard MIL-PRF-38535 space-level qualification requirements.