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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 20-Sep-13

Dow -185.46 at 15451.09, Nasdaq -14.66 at 3774.73, S&P -12.43 at 1709.91

The S&P 500 settled lower by 0.7%, but managed to end the week with a solid gain of 1.3%. The major indices spent the entire session in a steady retreat off their opening levels with industrials and materials leading to the downside.

Sellers remained in control throughout the day amid divisive headlines from Washington. The House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution bill to fund the government through December 15, but the inclusion of a provision to defund Obamacare means the bill will most likely be voted down in the Senate.

In addition, participants heard from two Fed officials whose remarks reflected quite a bit of static on the Fed's open line of communication with the market. During a morning interview on Bloomberg TV, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said the Fed could taper at its October meeting, but added that the current low rates of inflation suggest the central bank should be patient in its assessment of Quantitative Easing.

Meanwhile, Kansas City Fed President Esther George expressed some disenchantment that the Fed did not taper at the September meeting despite believing the markets were ready. Ms. George added that she thinks the Fed lost some credibility by not following through with the taper.

Although all ten sectors ended in the red, nine finished the week with a gain while today's weakest performer (telecom services) closed the week flat.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (-1.4%) weighed on the broader market as defense contractors lagged after Rockwell Collins (COL 70.00, -4.28) issued downside guidance for fiscal year 2014. The broader PHLX Defense Index fell 1.7%.

Also of note, the materials sector (-1.2%) finished among the laggards as steelmakers and miners slumped. The Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 45.81, -1.01) slid 2.2% after AK Steel (AKS 4.08, -0.36) said it expects a larger third quarter loss than what analysts had estimated. Miners lagged as gold fell 3.2% to $1326.10 per troy ounce. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 25.76, -1.60) tumbled 5.9%.

With the stock market ending on its lows, only financials (-0.5%) and health care (-0.2%) outperformed while technology (-0.7%) and discretionary shares (-0.7%) ended in-line. In the technology sector, Visa (V 198.83, +4.12) added 2.2% ahead of its entry into the Dow Jones Industrial Average along with Goldman Sachs (GS 169.75, +1.97) and Nike (NKE 69.37, -0.37). The three names will replace Alcoa (AA 8.29, -0.15), Bank of America (BAC 14.44, -0.17), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 21.22, -0.09) in the price-weighted index.

In stock-specific news, Blackberry (BBRY 8.72, -1.80) plunged 17.1% after cutting its second quarter guidance well-below consensus estimates. The company also announced plans to cut its global workforce by 40%.

Treasuries ended near the middle of their range with the benchmark 10-yr yield slipping two basis points to 2.74%.

Aided by quadruple witching, trading volume was strong as 2.06 billion shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

There is no economic data scheduled to be reported on Monday, but global markets will be reacting to the results of the German federal election. While Chancellor Angela Merkel is not expected to lose her seat, the anti-euro party has been polling close to the 5.0% threshold needed to enter parliament.

Week in Review: Taper Schmaper

On Monday, the S&P 500 added 0.6% after a pair of weekend headlines provided an opening boost to equities. Stocks began the session sharply higher after Larry Summers, who was thought to be the hawkish frontrunner, withdrew his name from consideration to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. In addition, news that Russia and the United States have signed an agreement to decommission Syria's chemical weapons within a year also contributed to the early bid. With Larry Summers out of the running, bonds and equities rallied while the dollar slipped. The benchmark 10-yr note was up close to a point before surrendering most of its gain into the close. The 10-yr yield ended lower by two basis points at 2.87%.

There wasn't much to be said about the trading action in the stock market on Tuesday because there wasn't a whole lot of trading action. Volume at the NYSE totaled a piddly 577 million shares versus an average of 661 million shares. The light volume reflected a wait-and-see mindset ahead of Wednesday's highly-anticipated announcement from the FOMC on whether it has decided to begin curtailing its asset purchase program.

On Wednesday, the S&P 500 jumped 1.2%, closing at a record high of 1,725.52 after the Federal Open Market Committee failed to announce plans to reduce the pace of its asset purchases, as many had expected. Although the Federal Reserve did not make a tapering announcement, the policy statement did contain updated economic projections. Notably, the forecast for 2013 and 2014 GDP was lowered with the Committee expecting this year's growth between 2.0% and 2.3% (2.3%-2.6% June forecast) and 2014 growth ranging between 2.9% and 3.1% (3.0%-3.5% June projection). During his press conference, Mr. Bernanke said economic data received since June has not been strong enough to justify scaling back asset purchases just yet. The Fed Chairman also said that recent tightening of financial conditions, as well as the ongoing fiscal uncertainty, played a part in the decision to maintain asset purchases at a pace of $85 billion per month ($40 billion in mortgage-backed securities, $45 billion in Treasuries). Similar to equities, Treasuries and precious metals welcomed the lack of a tapering announcement. The 10-yr note rallied more than a point, pushing its yield down 14.5 basis points to 2.71%. This marked the lowest close for the benchmark yield since August 12.

Thursday's session did not generate many headlines as the S&P 500 shed 0.2% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.2%. After spiking to new record highs on Wednesday, the Dow, S&P 500 and Russell 2000 spent the entire session in a slow retreat off their opening levels. Seven of ten sectors finished in the red while industrials (+0.1%), technology (+0.2%), and discretionary shares (+0.01%) posted modest gains. The discretionary sector received support from retailers as the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 82.30, -0.42) added 0.2%.

 
 Index	   Started Week	 Ended Week    Change  %Change	YTD % 
 DJIA	     15376.06	  15451.09	75.03	 0.5	17.9 
 Nasdaq	      3722.18	   3774.73	52.55	 1.4	25.0 
 S&P 500	1687.99	   1709.91	21.92	 1.3	19.9 
 Russell 2000  1053.98	   1073.82	19.84	 1.9	26.4

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: MKTG (17.27 +26.85%), GTAT (8.23 +25.75%), OIBR (2.17 +24.56%), GSAT (1.04 +20.45%)
Services: RAD (4.65 +26.87%), DRYS (3.48 +24.05%), VIPS (60.07 +22.34%), ULTA (117.62 +18.56%), SWY (31.39 +18.41%)
Industrial Goods: GFA (3.24 +16.9%)
Healthcare: GERN (2.49 +38.02%), VPHM (39.05 +31.15%), RPRX (28.17 +22.71%), ONVO (5.75 +21.57%), KYTH (41.33 +20.78%), CLDX (29.03 +20.47%), OSUR (6.24 +18.7%)
Consumer Goods: BZ (12.54 +30.87%)
Basic Materials: AUQ (4.31 +18.72%), IPI (16.66 +17.14%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: FLTX (38.52 -17.95%), EZCH (22.33 -7.83%), SREV (12.11 -7.42%)
Services: OUTR (46.38 -16.86%), PIR (20.53 -9.16%), LRN (33.04 -7.95%), ABFS (25.72 -6.97%)
Industrial Goods: JKS (17.34 -8.29%), TGI (69.39 -6.52%)
Healthcare: AVNR (4.34 -13.23%), HWAY (18.2 -7.79%), ATRS (4.05 -7.37%), WLP (82.35 -6.7%)
Financial: TWGP (9.19 -27.74%), BPOP (26.65 -8.15%)
Consumer Goods: BERY (20.73 -14.27%)
Basic Materials: LNCO (29.05 -9.21%), LINE (26 -6.85%), ROYT (16.6 -6.69%), GORO (6.93 -6.6%)

Large Cap Gainers

AVGO (42.17 +3.48%): Seeing reports of positive analyst commentary as supplier of components for iPhone 5S
NFLX (312.10 +2.16%): Seeing reports that co may have doubled its Canadian subscriber base in the past year
A (52.00 +2.00%): Target raised to $57 from $50 at UBS

Large Cap Losers

COL (69.35 -6.64%): Reaffirmed FY13 EPS of ~$4.55-4.60 vs $4.62 estimate, revs of $4.65 bln vs $4.64 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $4.30-4.50 vs $4.85 estimate, revs of $4.5-4.6 bln vs $4.99 bln estimate
IBN (32.34 -4.94%): Weakness in Indian stocks following central bank's unexpected decision to increase interest rates by 25 bps to 7.5%
NEM (28.63 -3.86%): Initiated with a Neutral at Goldman

Mid Cap Gainers

SSTK (67.69 +12.22%): Priced 4.6 mln share follow on offering of common stock at $60 per share; co selling 1 mln shares, existing shareholders selling 3.6 mln shares
TECH (81.7 +5.12%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at R.W. Baird
NPSP (30.43 +4.89%): Initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan, target $40

Mid Cap Losers

Z (89.67 -8.75%): Reiterated with a negative outlook at Citron Research
IAG (5.33 -7.94%): Initiated with a Sell at Goldman
DRI (46.33 -6.02%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.17 ($0.56 ex items vs $0.70 estimate), revs rose 6.1% yoy to $2.16 bln vs $2.19 bln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 EPS of -3% to -5% (~$2.97-3.04 bln) ex items vs $2.99 bln estimate; same restaurant sales grew 0.5%

1:19PM Microsoft continues to weigh on Dow, slides back toward morning low at 32.68 (MSFT) 32.71 -0.92 : The stock is probing a support zone between 32.74 and 32.63 which marks its 50 ema/sma and the 38% retrace of its Sep rally.

STMicroelectronics (STM) and Movea announced their agreement to integrate Movea's SmartMotion technology into the STM32F401 microcontroller operating as a low-power sensor-hub controller.

09:32 am ARM Holdings target raised to $60 at Canaccord Genuity: . Canaccord raises its ARMH tgt to $60 from $57 after AAPL announced the iPhone 5S model featuring a 64-bit A7 SoC, the first 64-bit ARM processor featured in a smartphone or tablet. SSNLF executives have been quoted in the press confirming 64-bit SoCs on their mobile roadmap, and firm believes other prominent ARM licensees will be forced to follow. Firm maintains its belief ARM is well positioned to exceed consensus in the medium term driven by an expanding royalty rate in ARM's key mobile markets as newer Cortex-A, big.LITTLE, and ARMv8 chip volumes increase and by market share gains in underpenetrated markets including digital TVs, networking, embedded, and M2M.

Marchex (MCHX) announced that it will not pursue a spin-off of its domains-related assets into a stand-alone, publicly-traded company at this time and that Archeo will continue to operate as an independent division of Marchex. Marchex came to this conclusion as part of a recent strategic review which determined that the incremental costs and complexities associated with taking Archeo public at this time would be prohibitive, and that Archeo's value to shareholders is best recognized as a segmented division of Marchex. The company also announced that its Board of Directors has approved a plan to allocate a portion of Archeo's cash flow to fund an ongoing quarterly Marchex shareholder dividend, subject to capital availability. Marchex anticipates it will fund a $0.02 per share quarterly dividend beginning in the first quarter of 2014. The aggregate quarterly dividend for the first quarter of 2014 is estimated at ~ $720,000. This dividend plan replaces, and depending on Archeo's cash generation, may increase and potentially exceed Marchex's prior dividend, which was put in place in November, 2006.

TIBCO Software (TIBX) reported third quarter earnings of $0.28 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is better than expected, while revenues rose 6.2% year/year to $270.9 million which is higher than expected. The company reported License revenue of $105.2 million. Non-GAAP operating income for the third quarter of fiscal 2013 was $64.2 million, resulting in a non-GAAP operating margin of 23.7%. This compares to non-GAAP operating income of $68.8 million, or a 27.0% non-GAAP operating margin in the third quarter of fiscal 2012. "We saw further signs of operational improvement this quarter, as our focus on execution generated renewed growth in our infrastructure business," The company sees fourth quarter revenues of $307-315 million which adjusted EPS of $0.38-0.40 versus which is line with expectations.

Moneygram (MGI) announced it has acquired Advanced ChronoCash Services and has signed an agreement to acquire MoneyGlobe Payment Institution S.A., which are both based in Athens, Greece. MoneyGram acquired super agent ACCS through a share purchase agreement. ACCS has been a MoneyGram agent since 2003, and has now grown to more than 400 locations with a loyal base of retail agents. The acquisition establishes a direct retail network for MoneyGram in Greece, enabling a closer relationship with its consumers. Additionally, MoneyGram has signed an agreement to acquire the shares of MoneyGlobe Payment Institution S.A., a provider of cash-to-account money transfers from Greece to Bangladesh. The transaction is subject to closing conditions and regulatory approvals.