From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Equities began the day on a negative note after the World Bank cut its growth projections for the Asian region. Lacking an additional catalyst, the key indices spent the majority of the session trading near their opening levels. A late-day buying surge briefly lifted the S&P 500 and Dow to their session highs, but the bulk of the move was promptly retraced. As a result, the S&P 500 shed 0.3% and the Nasdaq ended with a loss of 0.8%.
Energy stocks led the broader market. Within the sector, Marathon Petroleum (MPC 57.85, +2.98) advanced 5.4% after announcing the purchase of BP's Texas City Refinery, related logistics, and marketing assets. The base purchase price is said to be $598 million while inventories are estimated at $1.2 billion. Note that today's buying lifted MPC to an all-time high.
Coal stocks were broadly stronger as demonstrated by the Market Vectors Coal ETF (KOL 23.97, +0.18), which added 0.8%. Among individual names, Alpha Natural Resources (ANR 6.78, +0.20) gained 3.0%, while Arch Coal (ACI 6.63, +0.03) and Peabody Energy (BTU 22.63, +0.25) closed higher by 0.5% and 1.1%, respectively.
The technology sector trailed the broader market and the biggest tech component, Apple (AAPL 638.17, -14.42), settled lower by 2.2%. The weakness stemmed from reports which indicated that Apple's supplier, Foxconn is facing labor strikes at its manufacturing plant in China.
As the earnings season nears, guidance cuts continue to put pressure on technology stocks. The latest victim of slumping demand, Oclaro (OCLR 2.38, -0.25), slid 9.5% after lowering its first quarter revenue expectations below consensus. Peers, Finisar (FNSR 13.28, -0.24) and JDS Uniphase (JDSU 10.88, -0.48) lost between 1.8% and 4.2% in sympathy.
Semiconductor producers continued to show weakness ahead of the upcoming earnings season. Earlier, ISI Group downgraded four stocks from ‘buy' to ‘hold.' Of the affected names, Power Integrations (POWI 29.75, -1.34) shed 4.3% while Analog Devices (ADI 39.29, -0.43), Linear Technology (LLTC 32.93, -0.30), and Texas Instruments (TXN 27.99, -0.17) all slid between 0.6% and 1.1%.
Elsewhere in tech, Progress Software (PRGS 18.52, -2.96) fell 13.8% after announcing that its Chief Executive Officer Jay Bhatt will step down, effective December 7, 2012.
The Dow Jones Transportation Average continued to build on its recent strength. After trailing the broader market for an extended period of time, the gap between the bellwether group and the broader market continues to narrow. Today, the complex added 0.2% as Alaska Air (ALK 36.99, +0.47) led transportation stocks with a 1.3% gain. Railroads also showed relative strength as CSX (CSX 21.61, +0.19) and Norfolk Southern (NSC 67.29, +0.39) settled higher by 0.9% and 0.6%, respectively.
Two gun makers rallied on the back of supportive analyst comments. Earlier, the Benchmark Company said that last week's sell-off in Smith & Wesson (SWHC 10.46, +0.24) and Sturm, Ruger & Co (RGR 45.20, +0.55) may have been overdone. The weakness resulted from a slight slowdown in National Instant Criminal Background Checks during the month of September. However, the Benchmark Company notes that handgun background checks were up 23.0%, and that handguns represent the vast majority of sales for both gunsmiths. As a result, the two stocks added between 1.2% and 2.4%.
There is no economic data scheduled to be released tomorrow.DJ30 -26.50 NASDAQ -23.84 SP500 -5.05 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 853/1.16 bln/1565 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1180/464.4 mln/1792
3:35 pm : Commodities have mostly remained in the red in today's trading session as the dollar index held its gains.
Nov crude oil was in the red all day and fell as low as $88.25. Oil rallied in the morning and pushed into positive territory just for a moment. By the end of today's session, oil was 0.5% lower at $89.43/barrel.
Natural gas futures sold off during the overnight and early morning session. After bottoming out at $3.33. Nov natural gas futures managed to erase all of its losses, ending the day unchanged at $3.40/MMBtu.
Gold futures recovered most of its losses, rising about $10/oz off its LoD of $1768.60, ending the day 0.3% lower at $1775.70/oz. Silver traded in a rather tight consolidated range today, staying around the $34 level. Silver ended today's trading session 1.6% lower at $34.01/oz. Dec copper fell 1.6% to $3.72/lb.DJ30 -18.28 NASDAQ -20.30 SP500 -3.92 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 946/995.4 mln/1446 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1198/319 mln/1749
9:43AM First Solar partners with Kiran Energy and Mahindra Solar One on 50 MWDC of PV projects in Rajasthan (FSLR) 20.62 +0.55 : Co, Kiran Energy Solar Power Pvt. Ltd. and Mahindra Solar One Pvt. Ltd. have completed an agreement for the supply of First Solar's advanced, thin-film solar modules for two solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants totalling 50 megawatts (MW) DC to be constructed in India's Rajasthan state. First Solar will supply more than 585,000 of its advanced, thin-film solar modules for the two projects of 30 MWDC and 20 MWDC. Construction on both projects is expected to begin this year and be completed in the first quarter of 2013.
Cypress Semiconductor (CY) and Tokyo Electron Device announced an agreement whereby TED will become a distribution partner of Cypress. The agreement includes the entire Cypress product line, including PSoC Programmable System-on-Chip devices, touch-sensing solutions, SRAMs, USB controllers, and more.
AMSC (AMSC) introduced a new class of Amperium superconductor wire for power cable applications with industry-leading performance, pricing and production capacity; this is expected to enable lower cost superconductor power cables and expand the global addressable market for these systems.
10:43 am Information Technology sector trading slightly lower
The tech sector is trading lower today, along with losses in the broader market. Semiconductors are showing relative weakness as well with the SOX trading 0.7% lower. Within the chip index, POWI (-2.9%) is a notable laggard. Among other major indices, the SPY is trading 0.4% lower today, while the QQQ is down 0.6% and the NASDAQ is trading 0.5% lower on the session. Among tech bellwethers, FB (-1.9%) is showing notable weakness, while CSCO (+0.7%) is bucking the trend. In tech earnings, OCLR (-7.2%) issued downside Q1 guidance after the close Friday. Optical related names include: FNSR (-2.1%), JDSU (-2.8%), OPLK (+0.8%), EMKR (-0.7%), and AFOP (-0.6%). In news, PRGS (-11.4%) announced CEO Bhatt will depart in December and GLUU (+3.6%) partnered with Probability PLC for mobile gambling.
In notable analyst upgrades this morning in the tech space, MXIM (+1.1%) was upgraded to Neutral at JP Morgan, SPIL (-0.6%) & UMC (-1.5%) were upgraded at BofA/Merrill and SLAB (+0.6%) was upgraded to Above Average at Caris. Among downgrades, ADTN (-0.4%), RDA (-2.9%) & ISIL (-9.1%) were downgraded at Morgan Stanley, TXN (-0.4%), POWI (-3.0%), LLTC (-1.1%) and ADI (-0.8%) were downgraded at ISI Group, FB (-1.8%) was downgraded to Sell at BTIG Research and TSM (-2.6%) was downgraded to Underperform at BofA/Merrill. There are no notable names in tech scheduled to report quarterly results today after the close.
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