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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages ended with modest losses as the S&P 500 shed 0.6%.

Equities opened the session on an upbeat note as the Dow Jones Industrial Average appeared poised for its 21st consecutive Tuesday of gains. However, that changed midway through the trading day when the major averages dipped into the red, where they remained until the close.

The afternoon weakness left eight of the ten sectors in the red, but was most noticeable among cyclical groups as energy, financials, and industrials lost between 0.6% and 0.9%.

The energy space trailed behind the broader market from the start, and was unable to hold a gain even as every other sector displayed early strength. The growth-sensitive group was largely unaffected by the swings in crude oil as the energy component traded in a $2.00 range before ending little changed at $93.50 per barrel.

Elsewhere, weakness in all major banks pressured the financial sector, which settled lower by 0.9%.

Another growth-sensitive group, industrials, endured sector-wide selling as defense and transportation stocks retreated. The PHLX Defense Index fell 0.7% while the Dow Jones Transportation Average shed 0.5%.

Discretionary stocks outperformed other growth-oriented sectors, but a large subsector, homebuilders, did not share in the relative strength. Several major builders saw losses of more than 3.0%, and the iShares Dow Jones Home Construction ETF (ITB 23.43, -0.67) fell 2.8%.

Also of note, the technology sector saw some mixed performance as chipmakers advanced while major components lagged. The PHLX Semiconductor Index rose 0.4% while Dow component Microsoft (MSFT 34.99, -0.60) declined 1.7%.

On the upside, the telecom sector spent the entire day in positive territory as two major components, AT&T (T 35.67, +0.60) and Verizon Communications (VZ 48.84, +0.18), settled with respective gains of 1.7% and 0.4%.

In M&A news, Salesforce.com (CRM 37.80, -3.24) acquired ExactTarget (ET 33.69, +11.59) for $33.75 per share. The total transaction is valued at $2.5 billion, and the purchase price represents a 53% premium to ExactTarget's closing price from yesterday.

Today's economic data was limited to the April trade deficit, which widened to $40.3 billion from $37.1 billion. The Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to come in at $41.0 billion.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while May ADP Employment Change will be announced at 8:15 ET. The revised first quarter productivity reading and unit labor costs will be released at 8:30 ET while April factory orders and May ISM Services will be announced at 10:00 ET. The day will be topped off with the 14:00 ET release of the Federal Reserve's Beige Book for June.DJ30 -76.49 NASDAQ -20.11 SP500 -9.04 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 796/1.77 bln/1680 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1105/786.8 mln/1921

3:30 pm :

Aug gold fell back below $1400 per ounce as the Reserve Bank of India extended import restrictions on the yellow metal to include state-run trading companies and others authorized to directly import gold. A stronger dollar index also put pressure on prices. Gold fell as low as $1388.10 per ounce in late morning action. Unable to erase much of the loss, gold settled 1.0% lower at $1397.40 per ounce.
July silver also struggled in negative territory during today's floor trade. It brushed a session low of $22.23 per ounce and settled at $22.42 per ounce, booking a loss of 1.4%.
July crude oil popped into positive territory and to a session high of $94.41per barrel in late morning action. However, the energy component was unable to hold on to the gain and fell back into the red, settling with a 0.1% loss at $93.33 per ounce.
July natural gas chopped around in a fairly tight range between $3.99 and $4.03 per MMBtu during today's floor trade. It eventually settled at $4.00 per MMBtu, or 0.5% higher.

12:33PM Dell and Oracle (ORCL) expand strategic alliance (DELL) 13.45 0.00 : Today at Dell Enterprise Forum, Dell announced an expanded worldwide alliance with Oracle designed to help customers of all sizes realize the strength of the combined solutions of both companies. The two companies will introduce a new x86 infrastructure offering that combines Dell's hardware with Oracle's software, enabling organizations to deploy and manage applications faster with increased performance, flexibility and value at every scale. As part of the agreement, Oracle has named Dell a preferred x86 partner, and Dell has named Oracle a preferred enterprise infrastructure partner, including Oracle Linux.

9:38AM Semiconductor Hldrs displays early relative strength, pushes slightly above its May high (SMH) 38.94 +0.35 : ALTR +2.3%, TXN +1.9%, AMD +1.9%, ADI +1.6%, XLNX +1.4%, LLTC +1.3%, INTC +1.2%, NVDA +1.2%, MU +1.1%, AMKR +1%, BRCM +1%, KLAC +0.8%, MRVL +0.8%.

9:06AM QLogic announces restructuring plan; expects to achieve annualized cash savings of ~ $20 mln; reaffirms 1Q2014 guidance (QLGC) 9.81 : Co announced it is implementing a restructuring plan designed to streamline business operations with the goal of driving long-term profitable growth. The restructuring plan includes a workforce reduction, the consolidation of several engineering activities, and enhanced product development focus. These restructuring activities are part of an overall plan to deliver greater value to customers and shareholders, while accelerating innovation.

QLogic anticipates the restructuring actions will be substantially completed within the next twelve months. Once fully implemented, the company expects the restructuring actions will achieve annualized cash savings of approximately $20 million, primarily in operating expenses. QLogic has plans to reinvest part of these savings in the development of new products and programs.

The company estimates that it will incur pre-tax GAAP charges between $20 million and $23 million in connection with these restructuring actions, the majority of which will be recorded during the first half of fiscal year 2014. The company reaffirms its previously announced non-GAAP financial guidance for the first quarter of fiscal year 2014.

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that ZTE selected Broadcom's small cell baseband processor family to integrate into its 3G small cell residential access points.

8:02AM AMD Announces Extension of Exchange Offer for Its 7.50% Senior Notes Due 2022 for Registered Notes (AMD) 3.96 : Co announced that its pending offer to exchange any and all of its outstanding 7.50% Senior Notes due 2022, which were issued in a private placement for an equal principal amount of new 7.50% Senior Notes due 2022. Tenders with respect to approximately $499,615,000 aggregate principal amount of the Private Notes, out of a total of $500,000,000 aggregate principal amount eligible to participate in the exchange offer, have been received to date.

STM +4.6% (being attributed to executive comments on order growth)

6:44AM DSP Group: ISS, Glass Lewis and Egan Jones all recommend DSP Group stockholders vote the gold proxy card in support of co's slate of directors (DSPG) 8.23 : Co released the following letter to its stockholders: "We are pleased to inform you that with yesterday's announcement from Egan Jones Proxy Services that it is supporting the Company's slate of nominees, ALL three of the independent proxy advisory services - ISS, Glass Lewis and Egan Jones Proxy Services - have now recommended that stockholders vote the Company's GOLD proxy card... They were not swayed by Starboard's false accusations, misrepresentations and attempts at misdirection, and neither should you be swayed. They based their analyses on the facts. The facts are that Starboard didn't present a plan to grow the Company; their nominees lack the experience and expertise required to successfully compete in our markets and Starboard already has adequate representation on the Board."

08:10 am Microchip Up 4.4% Pre-market After Raising Guidance

Microchip raised first quarter guidance, now forecasting non-GAAP EPS of $0.52-0.56 (raised from $0.50-0.54) vs $0.51 Capital IQ Consensus estimate and sees sales +4-7% sequentially, which equates to ~$447.3-460.2 mln vs $447.8 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate (raised from +2-6%).
There will be no conference call associated with this press release. Microchip will be attending the Stephens 2013 Spring Technology Conference on Tuesday, June 4, 2013.
"We have continued to see a very strong bookings and business environment in the June quarter. We have received excellent visibility from our customers, allowing us to build our products in a good mix and meet our customers' requirements for the quarter," said Steve Sanghi, Microchip's President and CEO.

08:55 am Altera upgraded to Buy at Argus: . Argus upgrades ALTR to Buy from Hold. On 6/3/13, Altera announced that it would raise its quarterly dividend by 50%, to $0.15 per common share from a prior $0.10. Firm believes the payout hike, which represents a more shareholder-friendly capital allocation strategy, is well supported by current and future free cash flows. Firm's full-year 2013 earnings est is $1.54 per diluted share. For 2014, its forecast is $1.83 per diluted share. Both estimates are a few percentage points above consensus. Firm's five-year EPS growth rate forecast for ALTR is 11%. In its view, the year-to-date underperformance of ALTR shares creates an opportunity to initiate or add to positions at an attractive level.

FBR upgraded Intel (INTC) to Outperform from Market Perform and raised its target to $28 from $23. On the eve of Computex and the public debut for "Haswell," FBR acknowledges the challenges ahead for Intel in the PC market, but now believes INTC has added more than enough new avenues of growth to replace lost PC units. Additionally, in its discussions with engineers intimately involved in the handset design process, they have unanimously expressed a renewed interest in Intel's mobile SoCs, owing to expected power and performance advancements in the upcoming Silvermont SoCs. Additionally, FBR's comprehensive research into microservers now gives it confidence in the company's defensibility of the server market.

Agilysys (AGYS) announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Retail Solutions Group to an affiliate of Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. for total consideration of $34.55 million in cash, subject to customary closing conditions. Following completion of the proposed transaction, expected to occur later this summer, Agilysys' business will be focused exclusively on providing software enabled solutions to the hospitality industry. The Company estimates that, as of the closing, it will have approximately $110 million in cash and cash equivalents, representing approximately $4.90 per common share outstanding, and no debt.