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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages ended in mixed fashion as the Nasdaq shed 0.1% while the S&P 500 added 0.3% to register its seventh consecutive advance. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.9%.

The key indices diverged at the open with the tech-heavy Nasdaq and S&P 500 starting in negative territory due to significant weakness in the largest tech stock. Apple (AAPL 467.71, -26.93) sank 5.4% after the company's overnight product refresh event in China did not reveal a deal with China Mobile (CHL 55.87, -1.53) as many investors had expected. The underperformance of Apple kept the Nasdaq and the technology sector (-0.5%) in the red throughout the day while the S&P was able to shake off the opening weakness.

Rotten price action in the shares of Apple masked the solid gains in many other large tech names. Cisco Systems (CSCO 24.38, +0.22), Oracle (ORCL 33.02, +0.16), Google (GOOG 896.19, +7.52), and Microsoft (MSFT 32.74, +0.35) added between 0.5% and 1.1%.

Meanwhile, the price-weighted Dow was unaffected by Apple as the largest member of the blue chip index, IBM (IBM 190.70, +4.10), gained 2.2% after saying last night it will be selling its lower margin customer care business process outsourcing services business to Synnex for $505 million. Including IBM, 26 of 30 Dow components ended in the green.

Outside of technology, the financial sector (+0.1%) was the only cyclical group that trailed behind the S&P. Citigroup (C 50.73, -0.36) lost 0.7% after reports from Fox Business News indicated the bank plans to lay off 2,200 employees in its mortgage unit.

The broader market was kept afloat by the relative strength of the remaining growth-sensitive sectors. Energy, industrials, materials, and discretionary shares gained between 0.5% and 0.8% with energy and materials in the lead.

The energy sector added 0.8% as crude oil rose 0.3% to $107.72 per barrel. The other commodity-related space, materials, tacked on 0.6%. Gold miners contributed to the relative strength as the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 26.79, +0.22) climbed 0.8%. However, the underlying metal ended little changed at $1364.20 per troy ounce.

Countercyclical sectors have been a bit shaky in recent days, but ended today's session in mixed fashion. Consumer staples (+0.8%) and health care (+0.7%) outperformed while telecom services (unch) and utilities (-0.9%) lagged.

Treasuries jumped to their highs following today's solid $21 billion 10-yr note reopening. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended lower by six basis points at 2.91%.

Participation in today's session was a bit below average as 657 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Last evening, President Obama addressed the nation regarding the situation in Syria. Mr. Obama continued to make a case for a targeted military strike against the Middle Eastern country, but indicated the Russian proposal requiring Syria to put its weapons under international control will also be considered.

July wholesale inventories ticked up 0.1% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%. Today's report follows last month's unrevised decrease of 0.2%.

Separately, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 13.5% to its lowest level since November 2008. Today's decline was paced by a 20.2% decrease in the refinance index.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims, August export prices ex-agriculture and import prices ex-oil will all be reported at 8:30 ET. In addition, the Treasury will release its August budget at 14:00 ET.DJ30 +135.54 NASDAQ -4.01 SP500 +5.14 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1206/1.63 bln/1295 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1655/656.9 mln/1345

3:30 pm : Oct crude oil fell below the $107.00 per barrel level following inventory data that showed a draw of 0.219 mln barrels when expectations called for a draw of 1.5-2.1 mln barrels. However, the energy component quickly recovered back into positive territory, advancing to a session high of $108.09 per barrel. It pulled back heading into the close and settled at $107.55 per barrel, or 0.1% higher.

Oct natural gas traded mostly in negative territory today. It climbed to a session high of $3.62 per MMBtu in late afternoon action but retreated back into the red and settled 0.3% lower at $3.57 per MMBtu.

Dec gold chopped around slightly below the breakeven line today following President Obama's speech on Syria. The President has put the Congressional vote on an attack on Syria on hold as he seeks a diplomatic solution. The yellow metal brushed a session low of $1359.20 per ounce and settled just 40 cents lower at $1363.60 per ounce.

Dec silver, on the other hand, traded higher, rising to a session high of $23.23 per ounce. It eventually settled 0.7% higher at $23.17 per ounce.

4:15PM Qualcomm announces new $5 bln stock repurchase program (QCOM) 68.09 -2.00 : Co announced that its Board of Directors has approved, effective immediately, a new $5.0 billion stock repurchase program. This replaces the prior $5.0 billion stock repurchase program announced on March 5, 2013, at which time we had also announced a 40 percent increase in the quarterly cash dividend. Since July 24, 2013, the Company repurchased ~40.1 million shares of common stock for ~$2.7 billion. The new stock repurchase program has no expiration date.

4:13PM Hewlett-Packard confirmed launch of new Chromebook14, the first Chromebook powered by an Intel (INTC) processor based on the Haswell microarchitecture (HPQ) 22.27 0.00 :

Large Cap Gainers

BIDU (147.79 +5.11%): Mentioned positively by Citi analysts who believe search moetization may surprise; peer Chinese search firm QIHU also higher
NOK (5.9 +4.24%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill; upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Markets, target raised to $7 from $5; upgraded to Buy from Sell at Berenberg
MAR (42.93 +3.17%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS

Large Cap Losers

AAPL (466.27 -5.74%): Weakness following announcement of two new iPhones and iOS 7; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill; downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS; target raised to $540 from $460 at Oppenheimer; target raised to $525 from $500 at FBR Capital; target raised to $570 from $500 at Lazard; target raised to $600 from $540 at Telsey Advisory Group
PTR (110.64 -3.38%): Reuters reporting that joint venture partner China Oil & Gas has denied a newspaper report that one of its former executives was being investigated for corruption
NFLX (307.21 -1.87%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BTIG Research after shares exceeded price target

Mid Cap Gainers

LINE (27.28 +10.27%): Co, LinnCo (LNCO), and Berry Petroleum (BRY) announced progress in merger: companies have agreed to set the record dates for their respective unitholder, shareholder, and stockholder meetings as of September 30, 2013
LVLT (25.65 +4.72%): Announced it has expanded its Vyvx broadcast capabilities into South Africa to meet the growing demand for video content
THRX (38.84 +2.78%): FDA Advisory Committee recommended approval of umeclidinium/vilanterol for the treatment of COPD

Mid Cap Losers

RH (69.88 -8.13%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.49 ex items vs $0.43 estimate), revs rose 30.5% yoy to $382.1 mln vs $379.6 mln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.27-0.29 ex items vs $0.16 estimate, revs of $385-395 mln vs $365.7 mln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $0.81-0.84 ex items vs $0.82 estimate, revs of $490-500 mln vs $482.8 mln estimate; comparable store sales increased 26% vs 31% in prior year
WLK (102.45 -4.09%): Downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan
UMBF (53.63 -3.14%): Priced an offering of 3.9 mln shares of common stock at $54 per share

9:35AM Cisco Systems sets new high for the week/month of 24.30, its 50 ema comes in at 24.43 (CSCO) 24.32 +0.16 :

9:34AM Apple aggressive gap down start holds above its 200 sma at 463 -- session low 464 (AAPL) 470.00 -24.54 :


LSI (LSI) announced that its 12Gb/s SAS storage solutions will power more than 100 new server models based on today's announced Intel (INTC) Xeon Processor E5-2600 v2 Product Family

Riverbed Technology (RVBD) announced that the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation has deployed Riverbed Steelhead wide area network optimization appliances in 12 of its African offices and in many field offices.


QLogic (QLGC) announced that its FlexSuite adapters are the first to provide fully offloaded, multiprotocol support with PCI Express 3.0 for the new Intel Xeon Processor E5-2600/1600 v2 Product Family.


VDE Americas, a subsidiary of VDE Institute, and First Solar (FSLR) announced the establishment of a strategic relationship that significantly raises the industry bar for technical bankability and risk reduction for PV power plant operators, investors and financial entities.


Broadcom (BRCM) announced that D-Link has selected its StrataGX processor and 5G WiFi Enterprise system-on-a-chip for its new 11AC Wi-Fi enterprise access point.

Peregrine Semiconductor (PSMI) announced the PE42820 and PE42821 single-pole double throw switches for high-power wireless applications.

Cryptography Research, a division of Rambus (RMBS), and ALi Corporation announced they have signed an architecture license agreement for the use of Cryptography Research's differential power analysis countermeasure patents and technologies in ALi's STB solutions.

07:43 am Texas Instruments shares slightly lower following narrowing of Q3 guidance

Texas Instruments (TXN $40.14 -0.17) narrowed third quarter guidance at mid quarter update; sees GAAP EPS of $0.51-0.55 versus prior guidance of $0.49-0.57 with revenues of $3.15-3.29 billion versus prior guidance of $3.09-3.35 billion (both in line with consensus).

On the conference call the company said quarter is tracking with expectations at company level as well as within product lines; had expected that 1H growth in Auto would continue into Q3. The company also said average utilization will be up in Q2 as expected. Orders have been 'solid this quarter, AND backlog has expanded quarter to date so book to bill is greater than 1.

Synnex (SNX) and IBM (IBM) announced a definitive agreement in which SYNNEX will acquire IBM's worldwide customer care business process outsourcing services business for $505 million, consisting of approximately $430 million in cash and $75 million in stock. The acquisition will be branded and fully integrated with Concentrix, a wholly owned subsidiary of SYNNEX. As part of the transaction, SYNNEX will enter into a multi-year agreement with IBM, and Concentrix will become an IBM strategic business partner for global customer care business process outsourcing services.The transaction is expected to close in the coming months, subject to the satisfaction of regulatory requirements and customary closing conditions. After the transaction closes, IBM will have an equity interest in SYNNEX..

Brocade (BRCD) disclosed that on September 4, 2013, it committed to a workforce reduction plan intended to realign resources in connection with its previously announced data center and software-defined networking strategies and cost reduction initiatives. The workforce reduction plan impacts approximately 300 notified employees worldwide. The Company expects to incur aggregate charges of approximately $20 to $25 million for severance and other employee termination costs associated with the workforce reduction plan. All of these charges are expected to be cash expenditures. The Company's current headcount, excluding the notified employees, is approximately 4,180. Additionally, as of September 10, 2013, management approved a related facility consolidation plan and anticipates that it will incur leasehold restructuring and other costs associated with the plan of approximately $10 to $15 million of which approximately 75% is expected to be cash expenditures. The Company expects to recognize the majority of the above mentioned employee termination and facility restructuring costs in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2013.

Market Summary
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Symbol Last Change
Dow 15,326.60 Up 135.54(0.89%)
Nasdaq 3,725.01 Down 4.01 (0.11%)
S&P 500 1,689.13 Up 5.14(0.31%)
10-Yr Bond 2.92% Down 0.0390
NYSE Volume 0
Nasdaq Volume... 0
Indices: US - World | Most Actives
Advances & Declines
NYSE NASDAQ
Advances 2,407 (58%) 1,160 (45%)
Declines 1,657 (40%) 1,306 (51%)
Unchanged 120 (3%) 100 (4%)
Up Vol* 1,996 (59%) 957 (57%)
Down Vol* 1,305 (39%) 688 (41%)
Unch. Vol* 82 (2%) 44 (3%)
New Hi's 254 170
New Lo's 145 26
*in millions
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NYSE LAST CHANGE
NOK 5.95 Up 5.12%
BAC 14.65 Up 0.27%
ALU 3.40 Down 3.41%
VXX 14.47 Down 3.18%
GE 24.09 Up 0.92%
Nasdaq LAST CHANGE
FB 45.04 Up 3.30%
MU 16.49 Up 1.41%
INTC 22.81 Down 0.76%
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MSFT 32.74 Up 1.08%
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