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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 06-Jul-12Although stocks closed lower by 0.9% today, they finished the week less only about 0.6% below last Friday's close. After trading substantially lower on the disappointing employment data this morning, and drifting lower throughout the day, stocks managed so show some improvement in the final hour.

The biggest factor in today's trade was the disappointing employment data. June nonfarm payrolls came in at 80K vs. the 100K Briefing.com consensus. The unemployment rate was reported at 8.2% vs. the 8.2% Briefing.com consensus. Futures saw an immediate downside reaction to the weaker than expected data, and recovery attempts since then have been limited.

In U.S. corporate news, Seagate Technology (STX 24.95, -0.12) finished lower by 0.5% after it issued disappointing guidance for its fiscal fourth quarter. Peer Western Digital (WDC 31.02, +0.34) closed higher by more than 1% after a late-day rebound... Informatica (INFA 31.39, -11.98) is down by 28% after it issued downside second quarter guidance, citing a changing macroeconomic environment in Europe... In other news, Deutsche Bank (DB 33.65, -1.79) finished lower by 5% following reports that a German financial regulator is looking into the company with regard to Libor.

Technology was the worst performing sector, down 1.5% vs. the broad market decline of 0.9%, with the Informatica and Seagate warnings weighing. Materials, Industrials and Energy also underperformed. Defensive sectors such as Utilities and Staples outperformed, with losses of 0.1-0.2% on the day.

Overnight, Chinese stocks rose 1% on the central bank easing there. However, outside of China, other Asian markets had a lackluster response. There was weakness in Japanese stocks, with the Nikkei falling 0.7%, while Hong Kong saw a flat close in its equity market. Comments from Japan's Finance Minister, who suggested the government could run out of money as soon as October if a bond bill is not passed, may have also weighed on Japanese stocks.

European markets moved lower on the U.S. jobs data too, finishing with sizable losses. Germany's DAX closed down 1.9% while the UK's FTSE is flat. Spanish bond yields rose back toward the 7.0% level. Spain's 10-year yield is +24 basis points to 6.93% this morning, while Spain's IBEX is the worst performing European index today, down 1.5% vs. a 0.3% decline in the STOXX 600.

Looking back at the rest of the week, we'd note that it started with the return of ‘Merger Monday' with 4 major deals announced. Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY 36.00, +0.05) announced it would acquire Amylin (AMLN 30.07, +2.50) for $31.00/share in cash, representing an aggregate purchase price of ~$5.3 bln and 10% premium to Friday's closing price for AMLN. Dell (DELL 12.56, -0.07) announced it would acquire Quest Software (QSFT 27.86, -0.02) for $28.00/share confirming months of speculation, representing a slight premium to Friday's closing price. Ingram Micro (IM 17.01, -0.14) announced it will acquire Brightpoint Inc. (CELL 8.89, +3.48) for $9.00/share representing a 66% premium to Friday's closing price for CELL. Finally, Germany's Linde Group will acquire Lincare Holdings (LNCR 41.36, +7.34) for $41.50/share in cash, which was a 22% premium to Friday's close. The S&P inched out at 0.3% gain on Monday.

Tuesday there was an early close in the markets due to the Independence Day holiday on Wednesday. The S&P managed to rise 0.6% following better than expected report on factory orders in the US. The energy sector was the biggest outperformer, gaining 2.4% alongside strength in crude oil, which surged 4.6% following more reports stating that delivery of mlns of barrels of crude oil from Iran to China may be at risk following freight dispute.

On Thursday, the S&P fell 0.5% despite three major central banks taking action to help economic growth. China cut interest rates for the second time in a month as its benchmark rate dropped 25 bps to 3.0%. The ECB cut its benchmark rate by 25 bps to 0.75%, but fell short of announcing any further LTRO programs. The BoE increased it's asset purchase program by GBP 50 bln in a move that had been telegraphed by members for the past two weeks. Finally, Retailers reported June Same Store Sales. Overall June results came in below expectations with fourteen retailers missing estimates—the most since May of last year (six companies beat).

Next week, the focus shifts to earnings season, with Alcoa (AA 8.66, -0.25) reporting results Monday afternoon. Alcoa is down 3% this morning, after Nomura cut its Q2 earnings estimates ahead of Monday's report, citing a weaker aluminum market.

 
 Index     Started Week  Ended Week  Change  % Change  YTD % 
 DJIA	    12880.09	 12772.47  -107.62    -0.8    4.5 
 Nasdaq	     2935.05	  2937.33     2.28     0.1   12.8 
 S&P 500	     1362.16	  1354.68    -7.48    -0.5    7.7 
 Russell 2000  798.49	   807.14     8.65     1.1    8.9

12:35PM Semiconductor Hldrs ETF continues to display relative weakness (SMH) 31.25 -0.98 : The sector has been drag throughout the day with it recently setting a new session low of 31.25 leaving it back near the mid-point of its June recovery rally at 31.20. The next level of interest below if follow through develops is at the bottom of last week's bull gap at 31.08 -- KLAC -5.8%, ASML -4%, INTC -2.1%, TSM -1.7%, BRCM -3.2%, XLNX -3.2%, ADI -3.1%, ARMH -2.9%, ALTR -3.4%, ASML -4.1%.

PoLight, together with Semtech (SMTC) announced the availability of the first driver dedicated to the TLens platform.

Seagate Tech (STX $24.25 -0.84) announced selected preliminary financial results for its fourth fiscal quarter of 2012, which ended on June 29, 2012. Seagate expects to report record revenue of approximately $4.5 billion versus the $4.87 billion Capital IQ consensus) and non-GAAP gross margin of 33.6%. These preliminary results compare to the Company's previous expectations for revenue of at least $5 billion and non-GAAP gross margin of at least 34.5%. Seagate expects to report record unit shipments for the June quarter of approximately 66 million, reflecting approximately 45 exabytes of storage capacity and maintaining approximately 42% market share. During the quarter the company paid $1.2 billion to redeem over 45 million ordinary shares and exited June with 396 million basic shares outstanding. Cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and short term investments totaled $2.2 billion at the end of the June quarter. "Seagate expects to report another record quarter of revenue in the June quarter, however we did not meet our expected revenue and margin plan," said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman and chief executive officer. "The June quarter's shortfall was due primarily to two factors. First, we did not achieve our planned market share growth as we reduced shipments in response to the industry's faster than expected recovery from their supply chain disruption. Second, we experienced an isolated supplier quality issue that affected one of our enterprise product lines. This product issue impacted enterprise product unit shipments by approximately 1.5 million units and drove our non-GAAP gross margin below our targeted plan. While this disruption to our business was disappointing, we acted quickly and conservatively by suspending shipments of the affected products. We have resolved the issue and have resumed fulfilling our supply commitments to customers." Luczo continued, "Based on the macro-economic concerns indicated by a broad base of customers, we are approaching the September quarter conservatively and aligning our business for a relatively flat addressable market and modest improvements in our product mix. We are adjusting our production and inventory planning accordingly, and we expect average selling prices and margins to remain relatively stable in the September quarter. We also continue to expect to exit the calendar year with non-GAAP gross margins exceeding 30%."

09:19 am Seagate Tech downgraded to Neutral at Robert W. Baird: . Robert W. Baird downgrades STX to Neutral from Outperform and lowered their tgt to $27 from $33 following co's revision to expected FQ4 results. They continue to view co as well-positioned to benefit from HDD industry consolidation and valuation argues for downside support. But with a much more uncertain macroeconomic environment, they prefer to step to the sidelines and view risk/reward as balanced at current levels.

10:09 am Tech Sector trading lower as many tech company's issue downside guidance

The tech sector is trading lower today, trailing losses in the broader market. Semiconductors are also showing relative weakness with the Philly Semi Index trading 1.9% higher. LRCX (-4.2%) is a notable laggard in that chip index. Among other major indices, the SPY is trading 1.2% lower today, while the QQQ and the NASDAQ are trading 1.1% lower on the session. Among tech bellwethers, only FB (+0.7%) is showing strength, while IBM (-1.9%), ORCL (-1.8%), and INTC (-1.8%) are all under notable pressure.

In earnings last night, XRTX (+16.3%) posted a mixed Q2 and guided inline with consensus. Elsewhere, there were several warnings in the tech sector. INFA (-30.2%) issued Q2 guidance that came in well below Street ests. STX (-2.6%) and APKT (-13.6%) also cut guidance. In news, reports suggest that AMZN (-0.1%) is working on an Android-based smartphone. There were no notable analyst upgrades this morning. While in downgrades, INFA (-30.2%) was downgraded at BofA/Merrill, Jefferies, and Deutsche Bank, STX (-2.6%) was downgraded to Neutral at Robert W. Baird and ADP (-1.5%) was downgraded to Outperform at Raymond James.