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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Leadership from Financials had lifted the broad market to a nice gain, but a dive by the euro prompted participants to sell. Ensuing pressure sent the major averages into the red before a final rebound took the stock market to the flat line.

Financials led the broad market through choppy trade this morning. The sector was up about 2% with help from shares of banks and diversified financial services outfits. The Financial sector's gains petered out into the afternoon and were fully forfeited in the final hour, but a bounce off of the flat line enabled the sector to book a 0.7% gain.

Tech stocks, which were leaders in the prior session, generally lagged during trade today. The sector settled with a 0.3% loss. Energy stocks matched that move, but Materials slid 0.6% to suffer the worst loss of any major sector. Materials stocks had outperformed in the prior session by posting a 3% gain.

Many retailers were unable to sustain their gains, forcing the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 58.39, +0.05) back to the flat line after it had been up more than 1%. Quarterly reports from Best Buy (BBY 18.46, +0.29), Urban Outfitters (URBN 28.10, +1.94), and Polo Ralph Lauren (RL 150.27, +3.97) were in focus. Polo Ralph Lauren actually doubled its dividend to $0.40 per share.

News flow slowed in afternoon trade, so many became closely focused on comments from a former Greece prime minister who stated that the country may exit the euro. Although many believe that such a development would actually strengthen the euro, the currency sold off amid speculation about near-term costs and implications of the event. As of the final bell the euro trailed the dollar by about 1.0%. Prior to the open of trade it was learned that the OECD now expects a mild economic contraction in the euro area.

The Japanese yen was also hit with selling pressure. Its weakness followed a decision by analysts at Fitch to downgrade Japan's long-term debt rating to A+ from AA.

The greenback's gain didn't help the case for commodities. Broad selling pressure there sent the CRB Index to a 1.1% loss.

The only dose of domestic data centered on existing home sales, which set an annualized rate of 4.62 million during April. A rate of 4.65 million had been broadly expected.

Advancing Sectors: Financials +0.7%, Utilities +0.6%, Consumer Discretionary +0.3%, Industrials +0.2%, Consumer Staples +0.1%
Declining Sectors: Telecom -0.1%, Health Care -0.2%, Energy -0.3%, Tech -0.3%, Materials -0.6%DJ30 -1.67 NASDAQ -8.13 NQ100 -0.2% R2K -0.7% SP400 +0.2% SP500 +0.64 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 923/1.84 bln/1604 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1560/846 mln/1457

4:06PM Dell misses by $0.03, misses on revs; guides Q2 revs below consensus (DELL) 15.08 +0.11 : Reports Q1 (Apr) earnings of $0.43 per share, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.46; revenues fell 4.0% year/year to $14.42 bln vs the $14.91 bln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs growth of 2-4% q/q (~$14.7-15.0 mln) vs. $15.47 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Dell Enterprise Solutions and Services revenue grew 2% y/y to $4.5 billion and contributed half of Dell's gross margin; The ESS revenue grew 5% excluding third-party storage. Dell Services revenue was $2.1 billion, up 4%. Services backlog increased 9% to $15.4 billion. Dell-owned storage grew 24% to $423 million. Server and networking revenue grew 2%.

Large Enterprise revenue was $4.4 billion in the quarter, a 3% decline. Operating income for the quarter was $402 million, or 9.1% of revenue. Public revenue was $3.5 billion, a 4%decrease. Operating income for the quarter was $271 million, or 7.8% of revenue. Small and Medium Business revenue grew 4% to $3.5 billion. Enterprise Solutions and Services revenue increased 17%, led by services revenue growth of 23% and servers and networking of 16%. SMB had $389 million in operating income, or 11.2% of revenue. Consumer revenue was $3 billion, a 12% decline. Operating income was $32 million or 1.1 percent of revenue.

Asia-Pacific and Japan revenue was flat but China increased 9 percent. EMEA revenue was down 1 percent in the quarter. Americas was down 7 percent. Revenue in the BRIC countries increased 4 percent.

4:05PM Dell down sharply after missing on Q1 earnings and issuing Q2 revs guidance below consensus; stock down% 8.4% at $13.82 (DELL) :

IBM (IBM) announced the opening of a branch office in the city of Da Nang in Central Vietnam as part of the co's continued geographic expansion initiative to increase its presence in key growth markets.

Ciena (CIEN) announced that Indiana Fiber Network will deploy
Ciena's 5430 Packet-Optical Reconfigurable Switching System and OneConnect Intelligent Control Plane software to expand the capacity and service flexibility of its backbone network, and provide assured service delivery.

9:04AM PLX Tech: Integrated Device Technology (IDTI) commences exchange offer to acquire all outstanding shares of common stock of PLX Technology for $3.50 in cash and 0.525 shares of IDT common stock for each PLX common share outstanding (PLXT) 6.42 : Integrated Device Technology (IDTI), through a wholly owned subsidiary, is commencing today an exchange offer to acquire all outstanding shares of common stock of PLX Technology, Inc. (PLXT) for (i) $3.50 in cash and (ii) 0.525 shares of IDT common stock for each PLX common share outstanding, without interest and less any applicable withholding taxes.

8:36AM Cree announces Michael McDevitt appointed as interim CFO (CREE) 29.09 : Co announced that John Kurtzweil has resigned as executive vice president-finance and chief financial officer, effective May 21, 2012, to become the CFO of Extreme Networks (EXTR), and that Michael McDevitt has been appointed CFO on an interim basis. Cree has commissioned a search for a replacement through Russell Reynolds Associates, executive search consultants.

8:33AM Extreme Networks: John T. Kurtzweil to Join Extreme Networks as Chief Financial Officer (EXTR) 3.60 : EXTR announced that John T. Kurtzweil will join the Company as chief financial officer and senior vice president. Kurtzweil comes to Extreme Networks from Cree; he has worked as CFO with leading technology companies such as CREE, CRUS and ONNN. On June 29th, Kurtzweil will succeed Interim CFO Jim Judson, who will continue as a consultant during a transition period.

STEC (STEC) announced that Nexenta Systems has certified an all-STEC SSD configuration using a combination of ZeusRAM and ZeusIOPS SSDs to increase read/write capabilities within its NexentaStor ZFS-based storage platform.

Zoom Tech (ZOOM $1.23 -0.07) reports Q4 revenue increased 60% y/y to $139 million and reports net loss of $2.01 million compared to income of $5.1 mln in prior year period; no estimates available. Net loss in the quarter resulted from lowered margins in the EMS sector, increased R&D expenditures, one-time acquisition related expenses and impairment of goodwill... In the last few months of 2011, despite a credit tightening environment and that we engaged in less profitable manufacturing contracts in order to maintain a stable employment level at the factory, our normal operations would still have managed a slight net income of approximately $1 million in the fourth quarter of 2011. However, one-time acquisition related expenses, increase R&D expenditures and impairment of goodwill, resulted in a net loss for the quarter... Looking ahead, Mr. Gu remarked, "From the beginning of the year 2012, we anticipate a shift from the traditional assembly-focused manufacturing for our OEM customers to delivering whole phone solutions to large mobile operators and well-known brands in Asia. These activities should enable Zoom in 2012 to return to normal profitability and healthy margins."

Cree (CREE $25.99 -3.10) announced that John Kurtzweil has resigned as executive vice president-finance and chief financial officer, effective May 21, 2012, to become the CFO of Extreme Networks (EXTR $3.70 +0.10), and that Michael McDevitt has been appointed CFO on an interim basis. Cree has commissioned a search for a replacement through Russell Reynolds Associates, executive search consultants.

11:17 am Technonlogy Sector trading higher today but trails the broader market

The tech sector is trading just higher today, trailing larger gains in the broader market. Semiconductors are also showing relative weakness with the Philly Semi Index trading 0.6% lower. CREE (-6.1%) is a notable laggard in that chip index. Among other major indices, the SPY is trading 0.7% higher today, while the QQQ is up 0.4% and the NASDAQ is trading 0.5% higher on the session. Among tech bellwethers, QCOM (+1.1%) is showing notable strength, while FB (-4.5%) is again showing weakness.

In earnings, VOD (+2.6%) reported FY12 EPS of GBP0.15 which may not compare to the GBP0.16 CIQ est, while revs increased 1.2% YoY to GBP43.4 bln vs the GBP45.3 bln CIQ est. In news, RRD (-0.4%) announced it would acquire EDGR (+47.2%) for $1.092/share, while EXTR (+1.4%) disclosed it granted an exemption to Soros to acquire additional shares of the common stock. Elsewhere, MS (+2.8%) lowered its estimates on FB very close to the IPO, according to reports.

There are no notable analyst ratings changes this morning. However, STX (-5.9%) and WDC (-4.6%) are under pressure this morning following cautious commentary from Morgan Stanley regarding an increase in channel inventory. ADI (-0.1%) and DELL (+0.1%) are the notable name in tech scheduled to report quarterly results today after the close.