From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equities began today's session on a slightly negative note. After reaching session lows before the European close, stocks staged a slow recovery but were unable to break into positive territory. The S&P 500 ended lower by 0.1%.
Consumer staples were one of the top performing sectors. Within the group, Sysco (SYY 30.14, +1.30) jumped 4.5% after reporting earnings and revenues ahead of expectations. Campbell Soup (CPB 34.35, +1.04) also contributed to strength within the space. The packaged food producer gained 3.1% after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock from ‘sell' to ‘conviction buy.'
The materials sector was the weakest performer, with the biggest laggards found in metal producers. United States Steel (X 22.86, -0.55) ended lower by 2.4% and Olympic Steel (ZEUS 16.42, -0.41) was down 2.4%. However, paper producers outperformed the rest of the sector. Shares of International Paper (IP 33.94, +1.31) gained 4.0% after Credit Suisse upgraded the company's stock from ‘neutral' to ‘outperform.' Louisiana-Pacific (LPX 12.56, +0.56) rose 4.7% as the stock marked a new 52-week high.
Google (GOOG 660.01, +18.01) advanced 2.8% after the company announced up to 4,000 jobs will be cut from its Motorola Mobility business. Reports also indicated that Google will buy the Frommer's brand from publisher John Wiley & Sons (JW.B 47.41, -0.25). Today's bid put shares of Google at a level not seen since mid-April.
Meanwhile, Yelp (YELP 23.87, -1.98) and TripAdvisor (TRIP 33.52, -1.58) slumped 7.7% and 4.5% respectively on concerns that Google's purchase of Frommer's will increase competition in the travel publishing business.
Sears Holdings (SHLD 54.36, +2.94) surged 5.7% after announcing plans to spin off about 1,200 stores which will be listed under the ticker ‘SHOS.' In addition, a Barron's story published over the weekend suggested that Sears' controlling investor may be engineering a ‘slow-motion liquidation' which could lead to a doubling of the share price.
The volatility index, or the VIX, slid 6.7%, to 13.75. The VIX is currently at levels last seen in June of 2007.
Groupon (GRPN 7.55, +0.11) gained 1.5% ahead of its earnings release after the close. The consensus calls for earnings of $0.03 on revenues of $573.45 million. Shares of the online deal site are down more than 61% from its November 2011 IPO price of $20.00.
With the earnings season drawing to a close, a handful companies have yet to report their earnings. A few notable retailers will headline tomorrow's releases. Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS 50.54, +0.19) is expected to earn $0.63 on $1.42 billion in revenues while analysts expect Home Depot (52.82, -0.24) to report earnings of $0.98 on revenues of $20.74 billion.
Two notable apparel retailers are also scheduled to report tomorrow morning. Michael Kors (KORS 42.35, +0.03) is expected to earn $0.20 on $367.96 million revenues while TJX Companies (TJX 44.24, -0.22) is expected to report earnings of $0.55 on revenues of $5.93 billion.
Today's volume was well below average with just over 484 million shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
Tomorrow's economic data includes retail sales, retail sales ex-auto, PPI, and core PPI, all of which will be reported at 8:30 AM ET. In addition, business inventories will be released at 10 AM ET.DJ30 -38.52 NASDAQ +1.66 SP500 -1.76 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1068/1.31 bln/1363 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1112/484.1 mln/1887
3:30 pm : Crude oil rallied in morning pit action on concerns in the Middle East following reports noting that an oil tanker struck a U.S. Navy ship near the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend. However, the Strait remained open and shipping through the waterway was not affected. Despite the early strength, the energy component sold-off sharply off its session high of $94.14 per barrel and fell into the red after equity markets opened. Crude dipped to a session low of $92.03 per barrel but managed to erase most of its losses as it settled at $92.76 per barrel, 0.2% lower.
Natural gas spent most of floor trade chopping around in negative territory after it slid off its session high of $2.79 per MMBtu. It finished at its session low of $2.73 per MMBtu, or 1.4% lower.
Precious metals trended lower on the lack of news even with a weaker dollar. Gold gave up its overnight gains and spent the majority of its pit session in the red, selling off sharply as it headed into the close. The yellow metal settled with a 0.7% loss at $1611.60 per ounce, just above its session low of $1611.50 per ounce. Silver touched a session high of $28.02 per ounce in early morning action and dipped to a session low of $27.72 per ounce moments before closing with a loss of 1.0% at $27.77 per ounce.DJ30 -52.15 NASDAQ -3.73 SP500 -3.57 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 0941/1102.3 mln/1482 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 960/319 mln/2032
Newport News Public School District in Virginia installed more than 185 Cree (CREE) LED exterior luminaires.
9:03AM FSI Intl: Tokyo Electron to acquire FSI International for $6.20 per share in cash (halted) (FSII) 4.04 : The cos have entered into a definitive agreement under which TEL will acquire FSI for $6.20 per share in cash, or an aggregate equity purchase price of approximately $252.5 million. The acquisition, which will be completed pursuant to a cash tender offer followed by a second step merger, has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of TEL and FSI. The board of directors of FSI unanimously recommends that FSI's shareholders tender their shares into the tender offer. The transaction is expected to close in calendar year 2012.
RF Micro Devices (RFMD) has begun production shipments of its ultra-high efficiency power amplifiers to Samsung (SSNLF) in support of the Galaxy S3 4G LTE smartphone
8:24AM Broadcom announced its intention to offer ~ $500 mln of senior notes (BRCM) 35.36 :
8:00AM Xilinx Board authorizes repurchase of up to $750 mln of the co's outstanding common stock (XLNX) 33.71 :
Applied Materials (AMAT) has signed an enhanced two-year contract with GLOBALFOUNDRIES to service all AppliedMaterials equipment at its Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany.
GLOBALFOUNDRIES and ARM (ARMH) announced a multi-year agreement to jointly deliver optimized system-on-chip solutions for ARM processor designs on GLOBALFOUNDRIES' 20-nanometer and FinFET process technologies.
6:01AM MagnaChip Semi announced that its Board of Directors approved an extension of its existing stock repurchase program through October 27, 2013 (MX) 13.13 : The stock repurchase program, originally adopted effective October 27, 2011, had been scheduled to terminate on October 27, 2012. The Board also increased the total amount of common stock the Company may purchase under the stock repurchase program by an additional $25 million, subject to applicable legal and contractual restrictions, for a maximum aggregate repurchase amount under the program of up to $60 million. As of June 30, 2012, the Company had repurchased an aggregate amount of $28.7 million of common stock under the program.
10:39 am S&P Infomation Technology shares fall today as market pulls back
The tech sector is trading lower today, roughly inline with losses in the broader market. Semiconductors are showing relative weakness, however, as the SOX trading 1.2% lower. Within the chip index, VECO (-5.5%) is a notable standout. Among other major indices, the SPY is trading 0.3% lower today, while the QQQ is down 0.2% and the NASDAQ is trading 0.4% lower on the session. Among tech bellwethers, INTC (-1.2%) and TXN (-1.1%) are showing notable weakness. There were no notable earnings this morning in the tech space. In news, however, CMVT (+0.9%) agreed to be acquired by VRNT (+0.7%). Also, YTEC (+3.9%) entered into merger agreement for 'going private' transaction for $3.90 per share.
Among notable analyst upgrades this morning in the tech space, WNS (-0.9%), WU (-2.2%), FISV (+0.4%), BR (-0.7%), EXLS (-1.8%), HPY (+1.8%), and VRTU (+1.7%) were upgraded at JP Morgan, GOOG (+1.2%) was upgraded to Overweight at Morgan Stanley, and S (+2.0%) was upgraded to Buy at BofA/Merrill. In downgrades, Stifel Nicolaus downgraded YHOO (-0.3%) to Hold, VECO (-5.8%) was downgraded to Hold at Deutsche Bank, SYNT (-4.9%) and GPN (-2.5%) were downgraded at JP Morgan, and IFNNY (-0.7%) was downgraded to Neutral at Citigroup. GRPN (+1.6%) is the only notable name in tech scheduled to report quarterly results today after the close.
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