From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Equities settled near their highs, but came up a bit short in their attempt to erase yesterday's losses. The S&P 500 climbed 1.0% as all ten sectors ended with gains.
The majority of today's advance occurred in the first 90 minutes of the session amid a global rebound. Notably, China's Shanghai Composite shed 0.2% after being down as much as 5.7%. The rally off lows unfolded amid speculation The People's Bank of China will step in to resolve the ongoing liquidity crisis. However, the central bank has since reiterated its intention to remain on the sidelines. The overnight SHIBOR eased 75 basis points to 5.74% while the 1-week interbank rate rose 33 basis points to 7.64%.
Elsewhere, most European markets registered gains, but Italy's MIB fell 0.4% amid comments from an analyst at Italy's second largest bank, Mediobanca. The bank representative said the country's macroeconomic outlook has not improved and a bailout request will become inevitable. Italy's benchmark 10-yr yield rose seven basis points to 4.87%.
On a related note, U.S. Treasuries were in demand overnight, but surrendered all of their gains shortly after the open. As a result, the benchmark 10-yr yield ended higher by four basis points at 2.589%.
Interestingly, two rate-sensitive sectors vaulted to the top of this month's leaderboard despite the continued climb in Treasury yields. The telecom services sector rose 2.0%, which turned its month-to-date loss to a gain of 1.0%.
Also of note, the utilities space advanced 1.2% to trim its June loss to 1.1%.
Other defensive sectors trailed behind the broader market as consumer staples tacked on 0.1% while health care added 0.4%.
Meanwhile, cyclical groups were led by a 1.9% gain in financials. Transportation-related names displayed comparable strength as the Dow Jones Transportation Average jumped 1.9%.
Major homebuilders saw early strength before ending in mixed fashion. DR Horton (DHI 20.91, -0.01) shed 0.1%; Lennar (LEN 35.23, +0.24) gained 0.7% on better-than-expected earnings; while the broader iShares US Home Construction ETF (ITB 22.03, +0.24) added 1.1%.
A fair portion of today's economic data focused on housing. The April Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index rose 12.1% while a 10.5% increase had been expected by the Briefing.com consensus. This follows the previous month's increase of 10.9%.
Separately, April Housing Price Index from the FHFA increased 0.7%, which follows a 1.3% increase observed during the prior month.
Also of note, new home sales topped expectations increasing from an upwardly revised 466,000 (from 454,000) in April to 476,000 in May. The Briefing.com consensus pegged new home sales at 460,000.
Durable goods orders increased 3.6% for a second consecutive month in May. The Briefing.com consensus expected durable goods orders to increase 3.0%.
As expected, a large portion of the gain came from the transportation sector. Defense and nondefense aircraft orders increased 39.2% in May after increasing 23.6% in April.
Surprisingly, the gains in durables did not end with the transportation sector. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders rose 0.7% in May after increasing 1.7% in April. The consensus expected these orders to fall 0.5%.
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index rose to 81.4 in June, up from 74.3 in May and at the highest point since January 2008. The Briefing.com consensus expected consumer confidence to weaken slightly and drop to 75.0.
Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET while the third estimate of first quarter GDP will be released at 8:30 ET.DJ30 +100.75 NASDAQ +27.13 SP500 +14.94 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1779/1.60 bln/709 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2478/810.0 mln/591
3:30 pm :
Aug crude oil rose today following economic data released this morning that showed durable goods orders increased 3.6% for a second consecutive month in May. The energy component pulled back from its session high of $96.08 per barrel set at pit trade open as a stronger dollar index pressured prices. It dipped to a session low of $94.72 per barrel but recovered into the black moments later. It eventually settled 0.2% higher at $95.33 per barrel.
Aug natural gas fell for a fourth consecutive session as it slid from its session high of $3.77 per MMBtu. It attempted to erase some of the loss in late morning action but ultimately settled 2.4% lower at its session low of $3.67 per MMBtu. o Better-than-anticipated economic data released this morning and a stronger dollar index put pressure on precious metals. New home sales topped expectations as did the Consumer Confidence Index which rose to its highest level since January 2008.
Aug gold retreated from its session high of $1285.60 per ounce and brushed a session low of $1270.70 per ounce in morning action. Unable to regain momentum, it settled 0.1% lower at $1275.20 per ounce.
July silver also pulled back from its session high of $19.74 per ounce and spent most of its pit trade chopping around just above the unchanged level. The lackluster action left silver to settle just 0.1% higher at $19.52 per ounce.
4:31PM TTM Tech announces departure of COO (TTMI) 8.11 +0.07 : Co announced that Shane Whiteside, the company's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer has resigned from the company to pursue other interests. Mr. Whiteside will remain with the company through July 5, 2013. TTM's president, Thomas Edman will assume Mr. Whiteside's responsibilities.
4:30PM Intl Rectifier and Efficient Power Conversion Corporation reach settlement and royalty agreement (IRF) 20.70 +0.40 : Co announced that it has entered into a settlement agreement with Efficient Power Conversion Corporation that will result in the payment of royalties to IR on the sale of Gallium Nitride (GaN) on Silicon based power devices from 2015-2023, subject to an offset in certain cases. The settlement agreement resolves all disputes between EPCC and certain of EPCC's principals, including Alex Lidow, and IR without judicial determination of the merits of any party's claims or defenses. Other terms of the agreement are confidential.
2:12PM SolarCity: Wal-Mart and SCTY announce completion of 10 new solar installations in Maryland (SCTY) 34.87 +1.97 : WMT and SCTY announced the completion of projects at eight Walmart stores and two Sam's Clubs across the state of Maryland that will generate clean, renewable electricity. The energy produced by the new solar installations will generate approximately 4.1 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity annually -- enough energy to power nearly 370 homes -- and are expected to supply between 5-20 percent of each store's overall electricity use.
NVIDIA (NVDA) launched the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 GPU, which offers PC gaming performance, smooth frame rates and exclusive GeForce GTX features for $249.
8:36AM BlackBerry confirmed the availability of a new security solution that separates work and personal apps and data on iOS and Android devices (BBRY) 14.10 : Secure Work Space for iOS (AAPL) and Android (GOOG) is a new option with BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (version 10.1.1) that offers customers with a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy, a solution with the best combination of security, user experience and total cost of ownership. BlackBerry designed Secure Work Space to meet the management, security and cost needs of the CIO, and the user experience and functionality that employees demand. The BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 server software is free to download. Annual client access licenses for Secure Work Space are $99 (MSRP) per year per device. BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 is also available as a sixty day free trial bundle that includes 50 EMM Corporate CALs (providing device management for BlackBerry 10, iOS, and Android devices) and 50 Secure Work Space CALs.
OmniVision Technologies (OVTI) announced the OV8865, a new low-power, high-performance 8-megapixel CameraChip sensor.
MLNX +2% (Globes Online discusses Clal Finance comments suggesting MLNX is likely involved in huge Microsoft server farm )
ARMH +2.8% (upgraded to Buy from Hold at Investec)
09:20 am First Solar upgraded to Hold at Maxim Group: . Maxim upgrades FSLR to Hold from Sell. With the Hold rating, firm no longer has a price target on the company. However, its previous $42 price target had established a reasonable fair value for the company in mid-CY14, and firm believes investors should wait for a price in the mid-$30's before considering the company on the long side. Other than having raised $420M in a secondary offering and diluting its shareholders by approximately 10%, firm does not believe much has changed for the company.
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