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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equities began today's session on a positive note before retreating to the unchanged line. As the European markets closed for the day, U.S. stocks lifted to session highs, but the gains did not hold into the close. As a result, the S&P 500 finished flat on low volume while the Dow shed 0.3%.

Technology stocks outperformed the broader market with Apple (AAPL 675.68, +12.45) advancing 1.9% after the tech giant won its patent battle against Samsung. Apple's competitor, and the maker of Android operating software, Google (GOOG 669.22, -9.41) slid 1.4% after the verdict. Elsewhere, Universal Display (PANL 39.26, -3.47), which has a partnership agreement with Samsung, fell 8.1% as investors showed concern over the impact of the Apple ruling on the maker of organic LED screens. The selling may have been excessive as Wedbush Securities, Cowen Group, and Goldman Sachs have all come out to defend Universal Display by saying investor concerns are overblown.

Utility stocks were among the session's top performers. Electric distributor Black Hills (BKH 34.13, +0.71) ended higher by 2.1% while Exelon (EXC 37.05, +0.22) added 0.6%. Gas utility companies were also higher with National Fuel Gas (NFG 50.34, +0.39) and WGL Holdings (WGL 40.06, +0.29) advancing near 0.8% each.

Health care stocks traded mostly in-line with the market today. However, the SPDR Health Care Select Sector ETF (XLV 38.78, +0.04) marked a fresh all-time best at $38.94. The ETF was boosted by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY 32.89, +0.32), Eli Lilly (LLY 44.59, +0.73), and Unitedhealth Group (UNH 54.61, +0.45) as all three posted gains near 1.5%.

Stocks in the materials space underperformed the broader market. The sector was dragged down by Freeport-McMoRan (FCX 35.65, -0.48) and Dow Chemical (DOW 29.43, -0.46), both of which were down near 1.5%. Meanwhile, Monsanto (MON 86.13, +0.79) advanced 0.9% after announcing a new testing program from the company's Integrated Farming System Platform is set to launch next year.

Multiple mergers and acquisitions were announced today.

Kenexa (KNXA 45.79, +13.40) surged 41.4% after IBM (IBM 195.69, -2.08) agreed to purchase the human resources management software maker for $1.3 billion. IBM will pay $46.00 per share of Kenexa in a transaction which represents a 42.0% premium to Friday's closing price of $32.39.

Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ 14.21, +1.06) jumped 8.1% after announcing the purchase of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group (DTG 87.08, +6.08). The transaction which has been five years in the making values Dollar Thrifty at $2.3 billion, or $87.50 per share. This represents an 8.0% premium to Friday's closing price of $81.00. In addition, Hertz has announced an agreement to sell its Advantage unit to Franchise Services of North America and Macquarie Capital.

Hudson City Bancorp (HCBK 7.45, +1.01) soared 15.7% after agreeing to be acquired by M&T Bank (MTB 89.82, +3.95) in a $3.7 billion deal. M&T will pay $7.22 per share of Hudson City, representing a 12.0% premium to Friday's close of $6.44.

After rising up to the 200-day moving average over the past two weeks, yields have been on a steady decline. The Treasury complex continues to rally off its August lows with today's one point gain in the long bond dropping the 30-yr yield four basis points to 2.756%. Meanwhile, a more modest advance of 11/32 in the 10-yr lowered the benchmark yield three basis points to 1.647%. Tomorrow's $35 billion, 2-yr auction will be a good gauge of investor demand as it will be the first auction in over two weeks.

Tomorrow's economic releases are limited to the Case-Shiller 20-city Index at 9 AM ET and consumer confidence at 10 AM ET.DJ30 -33.30 NASDAQ +3.40 SP500 -0.69 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1228/1.36 bln/1235 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1422/504.3 mln/1571

3:30 pm : Crude oil traded in positive territory in the overnight session as Tropical Storm Isaac posed concerns over production in the Gulf Coast. Strength also came following reports of a fire that shut down an Iraqi crude oil pipeline to Turkey and reports of a refinery explosion in Venezuela.

However, the energy component tumbled over $3.00 into the red as the National Hurricane Center stated that the hurricane is not expected to strengthen past a Category 1 storm. The forecasted reduction of the hurricane's severity took crude's prices down to a session low of $94.41 per barrel.

Crude continued to struggle in negative territory and settled with a 0.6% loss at $95.54 per barrel. Natural gas fell off its session high of $2.74 per MMBtu and trended lower into negative territory. It settled with a 1.9% loss at $2.65 per MMBtu, just above its session low of $2.64 per MMBtu.

Gold dipped to a floor session low of $1668.50 per ounce moments before equity markets opened. However, buyers stepped in and took the yellow metal into positive territory. After trading in a consolidative pattern in afternoon action, gold settled 0.2% higher at $1675.50 per ounce, just below its session high of $1676.00 per ounce.

Silver continued last week's advance. It came off its session low of $30.80 per ounce and later popped to a session high of $31.17 per ounce. Although silver pulled-back slightly heading into the close, it settled 1.3% higher at $31.04 per ounce.DJ30 -19.32 NASDAQ +2.75 SP500 0.48 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1184/1101.2 mln/1271 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1412/321 mln/1563

12:01PM Seagate Tech and Supermicro (SMCI) for strategic alliance to offer customers Seagate Pulsar SSD line (STX) 34.26 -0.20 : Co announced a strategic alliance with Supermicro (SMCI) to focus on expanding the market for Seagate Pulsar solid state drives (SSDs). As part of the initiative, Supermicro customers will have access to the latest Pulsar.2 enterprise-class, MLC-enabled products featuring 2.5" form factors with SAS2/SATA3 6Gb/s performance in up to 800GB capacities. Qualified Seagate SSD products will be listed on Supermicro's product web pages.

11:01AM Agilent acquires assets of Auroro SFC Systems, provider of supercritical fluid chromatography products for lab research and analysis (A) 37.52 -0.33 : Financial details were not disclosed.

SanDisk (SNDK) announced it is working with Virident Systems on projects to combine Virident hardware technology with FlashSoft software from SanDisk.

8:31AM Ixys announces its Board of Directors has authorized an additional stock repurchase program of up to 1 mln shares of its common stock (IXYS) 9.42 :

8:00AM Ramtron: Cypress Semiconductor (CY) Increases All-Cash Offer for Ramtron International to $2.88 Per Share (RMTR) 2.63 : Cypress Semiconductor (CY) announced that it has increased its all-cash offer to acquire all of the outstanding stock of Ramtron International (RMTR) to $2.88 per share from $2.68 per share. The increased offer represents a 59% premium over Ramtron's closing price of $1.81 per share on June 11, 2012, the day before Cypress publicly disclosed its offer for Ramtron.

The revised offer will expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on September 11, 2012. The offer was previously scheduled to expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on August 24, 2012. Other than the increase in the offer price and the extension of the expiration date, all other terms and conditions of the offer remain unchanged. The all-cash offer is not conditioned on due diligence or financing.

ASML Holding NV (ASML) announced that Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) has joined its Customer Co-Investment Program for Innovation and has committed to contribute EUR276 mln to ASML's research and development of next generation lithography technologies over five years.

Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC) announced promotional pricing for its recently released iCEblink40 Evaluation Kits. The iCE40 mobileFPGA family, fabricated on non-volatile 40nm technology, is optimized for consumer and mobile applications that require low cost, low power and small footprint programmable logic devices.

AMD (AMD) launched the AMD FirePro S9000 and S7000, the industry's most powerful dual- and single-slot server graphics cards for compute, virtual desktop infrastructure and workstation graphics deployments in data centers

3:13AM Maxim Integrated sees no material near-term impact from Apple (AAPL) v. Samsung (SSNLF) verdict (MXIM) 28.16 : Co announces it has reviewed the verdict in Apple (AAPL) v. Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) as well as the ruling of the Seoul Central District Court in a lawsuit filed by Samsung against Apple, both of which concluded last week. At this time, co does not believe these lawsuits will have any material impact on Maxim's September quarter revenues. In reference to the California jury verdict in Apple v. Samsung, it appears that this lawsuit was not focused on the newer generation Samsung products that comprise most of Maxim's sales to Samsung in the December quarter.

Oppenheimer raised their Apple (AAPL $680.00 +16.78) target to $800 from $680. The firm notes, AAPL got a decisive win against Samsung on Friday as a US jury awarded it $1.05B in damages for IP-infringement. The firm says, this is a key win for AAPL, but the war's not over. The immediate impact on numbers might not be significant (for Samsung and Apple's shipments) as the appeal could delay shipment disruption and as the impact is only in the US where Apple's share is already high. Beyond the court case, they expect a strong December/March with another record iPhone launch and the mini-iPad introduction and they are raising estimates for the mini-iPad and see potential iPhone upside.

10:48 am Information Technology sector trading higher today

The tech sector is trading higher today, ahead of slight losses in the broader market. Semiconductors are showing relative weakness with the SOX trading 0.5% lower. Within the chip index, RBCN (-1.8%) is a notable standout. Among other major indices, the SPY is trading 0.1% lower today, while the QQQ and the NASDAQ are trading 0.2% higher on the session. Among tech bellwethers, AAPL (+2.2%) is showing strength, while GOOG (-1.6%) is showing notable weakness. There were no earnings this morning in the tech space.

In news out this weekend, AAPL (+2.2%) was awarded ~$1 bln in Samsung patent infringement case. NOK (+8.4%) and MSFT (+0.7%) are showing strength following the news, while GOOG (-1.6%) and PANL (-10.3%) are under pressure. Also, IBM (-0.4%) agreed to acquire KNXA (+41.5%) for $46/share. Elsewhere, AOL (+2.1%) entered into a $600 mln accelerated stock repurchase agreement and announced the authorization of a $5.15 per share special cash dividend. Among rumors, AAPL's (+2.2%) iPad mini release date is scheduled for October, according to reports. Also, we are hearing renewed FIO (+0.1%) takeover chatter. There were no notable analyst upgrades this morning in the tech space. In downgrades, Argus downgraded ADSK (-0.3%) to Hold and BRCM (-0.5%) was downgraded to Neutral at Nomura. There are no notable names in tech scheduled to report quarterly results today after the close.