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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 29-Jun-12Dow +277.83 at 12880.09, Nasdaq +85.56 at 2935.05, S&P +33.12 at 1362.16

The S&P 500 bounced 2.5% to score its best one-day percentage gain since December. The move helped fuel a strong weekly and monthly gain, but wasn’t enough to move stocks out of the red for the month.

A foray into stocks followed news that Eurozone officials have opened the door for Spain's banks to be directly recapitalized with bailout funds once Europe sets up a single banking supervisor. Moreover, Spain will not have to take on additional sovereign debt.

Market participants were also pleased to learn of a growth package worth 120 billion euros that will be aimed at boosting the European Investment Bank’s lending capacity.

The commitment of additional funds to address precarious conditions was taken as a positive rather than as a negative with implications for fiscal conditions. In turn, the euro rallied aggressively. By session’s end the euro was up 1.7% against the greenback.

Improved sentiment among market participants and a decidedly weaker dollar helped the case for commodities. In fact, the CRB Commodity Index rallied 4.6% for its best single-session spike in almost three years.

Crude oil was a primary driver of the CRB’s climb ahead of the EU's Iran oil sanctions set to begin on July 1. The energy component rallied 9.4% to settle at $85.02 per barrel, which translates into a 6.6% weekly gain.

With oil prices up and market participants willing to take on more risk, Energy stocks rallied to a collective gain of a little more than 3%. Still, they were slightly outperformed by Industrials and Tech plays; those two sectors each scored gains of 3.3%.

Utilities, which are decidedly defensive, encountered some selling after pushing higher in the early going. The sector was able to find support at the flat line before fighting to reclaim gains. It settled the session with a 0.6% gain, only a fraction of what the broad market scored.

Nike (NKE 87.78, -9.11) shares suffered a precipitous drop despite the decidedly positive tone to broad market trade. The stock’s slump came in response to a disappointing quarterly report. Ford (F 9.59, -0.50) shares also fell hard; the company’s latest profit forecast proved displeasing. A relatively soft forecast from Accenture (ACN 60.09, +3.46) was forgiven amid an upside earning surprise and broad market strength.

Personal income increased in May by 0.2%, which is slightly greater than the 0.1% increase that had been widely expected. However, personal spending stayed flat, instead of increasing by 0.1% as had been broadly anticipated. Core personal consumption expenditures were up 0.1% month over month. They had been generally expected to increase by 0.2%.

The June Chicago PMI reading of 52.9 came as little surprise since economists had generally expected a reading of 53.0 to follow the prior month reading of 52.7.

The only other item on the economic calendar was the University of Michigan's final Consumer Sentiment Survey for May. It eased down to 73.2 from the 74.1 that was posted in the preliminary Survey. Many had expected the reading to go unrevised.

In addition to encouraging news from Europe, participation picked up today as investment managers moved to rebalance and window dress their portfolios for the close of the quarter. For the second quarter the S&P 500 shed a little more than 3%. That was due to losses suffered in the past two months, offset partly by a 4.0% gain for June. The stock market’s 2.0% gain this week stands as its best performance since the first full week of the month

Nasdaq 100 +3.1%. ..S&P Midcap 400 +2.8%. ..Russell 2000 +2.9%.

 
 Index	  Started Week  Ended Week  Change  % Change  YTD % 
 DJIA	    12640.78	 12880.09   239.31     1.9    5.4 
 Nasdaq	     2892.42	  2935.05    42.63     1.5   12.7 
 S&P 500	1335.02  1362.16    27.14     2.0    8.3 
 Russell 2000  775.16	   798.49    23.33     3.0    7.8

4:52PM O2Micro lowers Q2 revenue guidance to $27.9-28.5 mln vs $31.0 mln Capital IQ Consensus Est, down from $30.3-31.8 mln (OIIM) 4.41 +0.06 : Co lowers Q2 revenue guidance to $27.9-28.5 million, versus previous guidance of $30.3 million to $31.8 million. In addition, gross margin for the second quarter is now expected to be 55% to 56%.

The reduction in anticipated revenue for the second quarter is primarily the result of broad-based weakness in demand in our end markets. Sterling

"O2Micro is navigating broadly through lower demand in all of our end markets. We believe this is the result of broad-based economic weakness, coupled with excess inventory correction. Despite this challenging macro-economic environment, we are expecting growth in the latter half of 2012, primarily from our new product launches and expanding relationships with our partners and customers."

No conference call will be held in conjunction with this financial guidance update. Additional information will be available when the Company reports its Q2 2012 results prior to market open on August 1, 2012.

8:32AM First Solar appoints Georges Antoun COO (FSLR) 14.74 : Co announced that Georges Antoun has been appointed Chief Operating Officer. Antoun will initially have responsibility for manufacturing, R&D, quality and product management. Most recently Antoun was a venture partner at Technology Crossover Ventures, a private equity and venture firm.

8:31AM IPG Photonics acquires 22.5% minority interest in russian subsidiary (IPGP) 43.18 : Co announced that it purchased the outstanding 22.5% minority interest in its Russia-based subsidiary, NTO IRE-Polus, that it previously sold to Open Joint Stock Company "Rusnano." IPG regained complete control of NTO for $55.4 million in cash. The Company expects the transaction to be accretive starting in the third quarter of 2012. The net income attributed to Rusnano's non-controlling interest in NTO had resulted in a reduction to IPG Photonics' earnings of $0.07 per diluted share in 2011 and $0.01 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2012.

United Microelectronics (UMC) has licensed IBM (IBM) technology to expedite the development of the foundry's next generation 20nm CMOS process with FinFET 3D transistors.

Resarch in Motion (RIMM $7.76 -1.37) reported a first quarter loss of $0.37 per share, $0.29 worse than the Capital IQ consensus of ($0.08), while revenues fell 42.7% year/year to $2.81 billion versus the $3.04 bln consensus. Shipments of BlackBerry smartphones were 7.8 million and shipments of BlackBerry PlayBook tablets were approximately 260,000. BlackBerry 10 smartphone launch now scheduled for Q1 of calendar 2013. The Company expects the next several quarters to continue to be very challenging for its business based on the increasing competitive environment, lower handset volumes, potential financial and other impacts from the delay of BlackBerry 10, pressure to reduce RIM's monthly infrastructure access fees, and the Company's plans to continue to aggressively drive sales of BlackBerry 7 handheld devices. The Company expects to report an operating loss in the second quarter of fiscal 2013, as RIM continues to invest in marketing programs and continues to work through the transition to BlackBerry 10, as well as the Company's fixed costs being allocated over a lower volume of shipments. This outlook excludes the impact of charges related to the CORE Program. Briefing Note: Q2 Capital IQ consensus is -$0.07.

10:50 am Information Technology shares rise by 2% as market moves higher

The tech sector is trading higher today, outpacing gains in the broader market. Semiconductors are also showing relative strength with the Philly Semi Index trading 3.1% higher. NXPI (+7.5%) is a notable leader in that chip index. Among other major indices, the SPY is trading 1.9% higher today, while the QQQ and the NASDAQ are trading 2.2% higher on the session. Among tech bellwethers, TXN (+4.6%) is showing notable strength.

In earnings last night, ACN (+5.1%) reported a mixed quarter and guided lower. Elsewhere, RIMM (-17.9%) posted a miss and downside guidance, while TIBX (+8.1%) reported a Q2 beat. Also, VCLK (+11.9%) issued upside Q2 revenue guidance. In news, ADBE (+2.7%) announced it will be discontinuing its development of the Flash Player for mobile browsers. ServiceNow NOW (+30.6%) opened for trading at $23.75 after pricing IPO at $18. ]

Among notable analyst upgrades this morning, ORCL (+4.3%) was upgraded to Outperform at RBC. While in downgrades, RIMM (-17.9%) was downgraded at CIBC, Scotia, and Societe Generale, VOD (+0.2%) was downgraded to Hold at Jefferies, and WIT (+4.5%) was downgraded at BofA/Merrill.