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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equities began today's session slightly lower before climbing back to break-even. The morning gains coincided with advances in European indices ahead of their close. After marking session highs near 1,404, the S&P 500 fell back to its unchanged level and stayed there for the remainder of the day.


Telecommunications sector outperformed the broader market as Cincinnati Bell (CBB 3.94, +0.20) advanced 5.4% following an earnings beat. The company also announced the IPO of its CyrusOne unit which operates Cincinnati Bell's data center business. Today's breakout lifted the shares back to levels last seen in late March of this year.

Consumer staples were lifted by Dean Foods (DF 17.46, +5.04) which announced the planned IPO of its organic food division, The WhiteWave Foods. Shares of the company soared by 40.6%, and today's buying brought the stock near its early July levels.

Bloomin' Brands (BLMN 12.41, +1.41), the parent company of Outback Steakhouse, began trading publicly this morning. After opening at $11.64 shares of the company surged by 12.8%.

Priceline.com (PCLN 562.32, -117.48) plunged 17.3% after missing on revenues. The company issued lower third quarter guidance, blaming the cloudy outlook on the persisting European debt crisis. Today's selling pressure dropped the stock down to levels not seen since mid-February.

Standard Chartered (SCBFF 21.10, +2.15) gained 11.4% as the investigation into the bank's illicit dealings with Iran continues. The stock has rebounded partially after falling 14.2% yesterday.

McDonald's (MCD 87.53, -1.48) reported flat same-store sales during the month of July. The report put a damper on third quarter earnings expectations for the fast food giant which ended lower by 1.7%.

Research in Motion (RIMM 7.62, +0.31) jumped to $8.25 following rumors of a potential partnership with Samsung. Samsung later denied having interest in a partnership, but shares of Research in Motion held on to some of their gains and ended higher by 4.2%.

Crude oil popped to a session high of $94.72 per barrel following larger-than-anticipated draw of 3.7 million barrels when a draw of 1.5 million was expected. The move was short-lived, however, and the energy component trended lower for the remainder of trade. Crude fell back into negative territory and slid below the $93.00 level moments before it settled with a 0.3% loss at $93.39.

Gold came off its session low of $1606.20 per ounce and broke into positive territory in mid-morning action. It brushed a session high of $1619.50 and spent the rest of the day chopping around just below that level. The yellow metal closed 0.2% higher at $1615.90 despite a stronger dollar. Silver also came off its session low of $27.70 per ounce that was set moments after trade opened. However, the white metal fell back into the red after it brushed its session high of $28.21 and settled 0.1% lower at $28.07.

Retailer Kohl's (KSS 52.06, +0.23) and fast food chain Wendy's (WEN 4.54, -0.01) are scheduled to report quarterly results before tomorrow's open.

A few economic data points will be reported tomorrow. Initial and continuing claims and the trade balance will be reported at 8:30 AM ET. In addition, wholesale inventories will be released at 10 AM ET.DJ30 +7.04 NASDAQ -4.61 SP500 +0.87 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1089/1.82 bln/1388 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1528/637.1 mln/1449

3:30 pm : Crude oil popped to a floor session high of $94.72 per barrel following stronger-than-anticipated inventory data that showed a draw of 3.7 million barrels when a draw of 1.5 million was expected. The move was short-lived, however, and the energy component trended lower for the remainder of pit trade. It fell back into negative territory and slid below the $93.00 level moments before it settled with a 0.3% loss at $93.39.

Natural gas spent its entire pit session in the red, dipping as low as $2.90 per MMBtu in afternoon action. It attempted to recover some losses as it headed into the close and finished the session 1.0% lower at $2.93 per MMBtu.

Gold came off its pit session low of $1606.20 per ounce and broke into positive territory in mid-morning action. It brushed a session high of $1619.50 and spent the rest of the day chopping around just below that level. It closed 0.2% higher at $1615.90 despite a stronger dollar. Silver also came off its session low of $27.70 per ounce that was set moments after floor trade opened. However, the metal fell back into the red after it brushed its session high of $28.21 and settled 0.1% lower at $28.07.DJ30 +19.80 NASDAQ -2.56 SP500 +1.55 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1139/1.52 bln/1340 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1497/431.5 mln/1444

4:03PM Diodes misses by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs below consensus (DIOD) 18.89 -0.26 : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.19; revenues fell 6.2% year/year to $159.2 mln vs the $159.57 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $162-170 mln vs. $173.23 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "As we look to the second half of 2012, we are approaching the challenging environment cautiously as we began to see demand moderate in June and growth in China is proving to be softer than expected. That said, we remain focused on executing on our profitable growth model...We expect gross margin to be 28 percent, plus or minus 2 percent."

9:11AM Hewlett-Packard raises Q3 EPS guidance; announces $8 bln services impairment; raises restructuring charge estimate; announces Enterprise Services mgmt changes (HPQ) 18.96 : Co issues upside guidance for Q3 (Jul), raises EPS to ~$1.00, excluding non-recurring items, from $0.94-0.97 vs. $0.97 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. HP expects to record a non-cash pre-tax charge for the impairment of goodwill within its Services segment of ~$8 bln in the third quarter of its fiscal 2012. HP also updated the amount of the pre-tax charge it expects to record in the third quarter of fiscal 2012 in relation to its restructuring program announced on May 23, 2012. The change is primarily driven by a higher than anticipated acceptance rate under its early retirement program and faster than expected implementation of the workforce reduction program. Accordingly, HP now expects to record a pre-tax charge of ~$1.5 bln to $1.7 bln, an increase from its previous estimate of ~$1 bln, in its third quarter of fiscal 2012 that will be included in its GAAP financial results. Co announced that it has appointed Mike Nefkens, currently senior vice president and general manager of HP Enterprise Services (ES) -- EMEA, to lead HP ES on an acting basis. John Visentin, who previously ran HP ES, will be leaving the company to pursue other interests. HP also announced today that Jean-Jacques Charhon, senior vice president and chief financial officer of HP ES, was appointed chief operating officer for HP ES. Charhon will focus on increasing customer satisfaction and improving service delivery efficiency, which will help drive profitable growth.

Marvell (MRVL) and Yulong Telecommunication announced the new-generation Coolpad 8180 smartphone powered by the Marvell PXA920H chipset is available for China Mobile customers.

8:05AM Vishay Precision beats by $0.02, misses on revs; guides Q3 revs below consensus (VPG) 13.49 : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.21 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.19; revenues fell 11.0% year/year to $55.3 mln vs the $56.15 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $52-57 mln vs. $57.56 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "We expect that shipment of our products in the third quarter will be seasonally lower compared to first and second quarters of 2012. Europe currently represents approximately 41% of our total revenues and we typically experience a slowdown in that region during the third quarter."

6:15AM MEMC Elec beats by $0.16, beats on revs; sees 2nd half 2012 revs stronger then first half (WFR) 2.05 : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.14 per share, $0.16 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.02); revenues rose 8.4% year/year to $808.4 mln vs the $748.21 mln consensus. GAAP gross margin in the 2012 second quarter was 13.2%, compared to 24.3% in the 2011 second quarter and 10.9% in the 2012 first quarter. Non-GAAP gross margin was 16.7% in the 2012 second quarter, compared to 25.2% in the 2011 second quarter and 10.0% in the 2012 first quarter. Second quarter 2011 GAAP and non-GAAP net income was positively impacted by $64.5 million, reflecting an after tax benefit of $132.6 million related to the LTA resolution, partially offset by $68.1 million in various other charges.

Outlook: Co sees Q3 Semiconductor revenue up 3% to 8% sequentially, Solar energy systems non-GAAP sales volume in the range of 40 MW to 60 MW. For FY12 co sees: Semiconductor revenue down 2% to 5% year-over-year. Revenue in second half 2012 stronger than in first half 2012. Solar energy systems non-GAAP sales volume greater than 400 MW.

Xilinx (XLNX) announced it has increased the peak processing performance of the Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC family to 1 GHz, and is also providing smaller form factor packaging to enable higher system performance and programmable systems integration.

Cree (CREE $27.22 +0.88) reported second quarter earnings of $0.25 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ consensus of $0.23, while revenues rose 26.2% year/year to $306.8 million versus the $306.2 million consensus. The company issued downside guidance for the first quarter with EPS of $0.23-0.28, excluding non-recurring items, versus the $0.28 consensus and revenues of $305-325 million versus the $328.7 million consensus.