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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The S&P 500 added 0.5%, extending this week's advance to 1.1%. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq underperformed with a gain of 0.2% as Cisco Systems (CSCO 21.36, -2.63) weighed on the tech-heavy index.

Shares of Cisco plunged 11.0% after the company reported below-consensus top-line results and said it expects second quarter revenue to decline by up to 10.0%. Interestingly, the disappointing guidance had little effect on other tech names. The largest technology-and Nasdaq-component, Apple (AAPL 528.16, +7.53), settled higher by 1.5% while the broader tech sector (-0.4%) spent the entire session climbing off its opening low.

Outside of technology, the remaining nine sectors posted gains between 0.4% and 0.9%. Countercyclical groups-consumer staples, health care, utilities, and telecom services-outperformed from the start while cyclical sectors caught up in late morning/early afternoon action.

The intraday rally took place during Janet Yellen's confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Banking Committee. The hearing did not generate any bombshells, and all of Ms. Yellen's comments were in-line with her prepared remarks that were released last evening. In addition, her comments made it clear that the central bank will not be in any hurry to reduce the pace of its asset purchases. On that note, the Fed Chair nominee said:

The benefits of bond buying exceed the costs The Fed is apt to maintain accommodative policy for some time after the asset purchase program ends
QE cannot go on forever, but there is no set time for when the Fed will reduce the pace of its asset purchases
It is important not to remove support while the recovery is still fragile
There doesn't appear to be a bubble in stock prices when considering the level of P/E ratios and the equity risk premium

Stocks and bonds drew support from these comments, and although the Treasury market saw some afternoon weakness following a disappointing 30-yr auction, the 10-yr note ended near its high with its yield down three basis points at 2.70%.

The prospects of continued easing also provided support to gold futures, which settled higher by 1.4% at $1286.50 per troy ounce. On a related note, miners underpinned the materials sector (+0.8%), which ended among the leaders. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 24.55, +0.64) advanced 2.7%.

Today's participation was well below average as just over 630 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

On the economic front, weekly initial claims were essentially in-line with recent trends as the claims level fell to 339,000 from an upwardly revised 341,000 (from 336,000). The Briefing.com consensus expected the initial claims level to fall to 330,000. After weeks of biases from the government shutdown and computer glitches in California, the initial claims level has entered a relatively calm phase. Layoff levels are holding steady at around 335,000.

Separately, nonfarm labor productivity increased 1.9% in the third quarter. That was up from a downwardly revised 1.8% (from 2.3%) in the second quarter, and the strongest quarterly gain since increasing 2.5% in Q3 2012. The Briefing.com consensus expected nonfarm business productivity to increase 2.0%.

Output levels increased 3.7% in the third quarter, up from a 3.3% increases in Q2 2013. Compensation growth softened, increasing only 1.3% after increasing 2.3% in the second quarter. The combination of faster output growth and slower compensation gains resulted in unit labor costs falling 0.6% in the third quarter. Unit labor costs have declined for two out three quarters thus far in 2013. The consensus expected unit labor costs to increase 0.8%.

Lastly, the September trade deficit widened to $41.8 billion from a downwardly revised $38.7 billion (from $38.8 billion) in August. The consensus expected the trade deficit to increase to $39.1 billion. The advance reading of the third quarter GDP data assumed the trade deficit narrowed to roughly $38 billion in September. The wider-than-expected September trade deficit will likely reduce the positive effect net exports had on third quarter GDP growth.

Tomorrow, the November Empire Manufacturing Index, October export prices ex-agriculture, and import prices ex-oil will all be released at 8:30 ET while October industrial production and capacity utilization will cross the wires at 9:15 ET. The September wholesale inventories report will be the final economic data point of the week, scheduled for a 10:00 ET release.

Nasdaq +31.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +30.9% YTD
S&P 500 +25.6% YTD
DJIA +21.2% YTD

DJ30 +54.59 NASDAQ +7.16 SP500 +8.62 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1220/1.91 bln/1306 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1992/633.1 mln/1004 3:40 pm : Commodities ends mixed with crude oil losing groun, nat gas, heating oil and RBOB gasoline rising, gold and siver rising and copper ending flat. In the agriculture market, corn and soybeans fell, wheat and sugar were flat.

Crude oil futures rallied mid-morning, rising above $94/barrel, hitting as high as $94.43/barrel. At the end of today's session, Dec crude fell $0.16 to $93.75/barrel. Dec natural gas gained three cents to $3.60/MMBtu.

Dec gold rallied $18/oz to end pit trading at $1286.50/oz, while Dec silver rose $0.26 to $20.71/oz.

4:17PM Western Digital names Tim Leyden Chief Financial Officer, effective Nov 18 (WDC) 75.85 +3.41 : Co announced that Tim Leyden has been named chief financial officer, effective Nov. 18, and that Jim Murphy will succeed Leyden as president of the company's WD subsidiary. Both executives are experienced leaders from within the Western Digital organization. Leyden will succeed Wolfgang Nickl, who is resigning as CFO, effective Nov. 17, to join ASML in his native Europe.

4:08PM Agilent beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (A) 50.53 -0.67 : Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.81 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.76; revenues fell 2.8% year/year to $1.72 bln vs the $1.71 bln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.65-0.67, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.72 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.68-1.70 bln vs. $1.72 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07PM Applied Materials beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (AMAT) 17.56 -0.11 : Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.19 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.18; revenues rose 20.6% year/year to $1.99 bln vs the $1.98 bln consensus. Backlog grew 4 percent to $2.37 billion including negative adjustments of $21 million. Gross margin was 42.0% on a non-GAAP adjusted basis, down slightly from 42.9% in the prior quarter.
Outlook:

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.20-0.24 vs. $0.24 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs up 3-10% sequentially, which equates to $2.04-2.18 bln vs. $2.21 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. The company expects non-GAAP adjusted operating expenses to be in the range of $540 million, plus or minus $10 million.
"As we look ahead to 2014, we expect stronger investment by our semiconductor and display customers and major technology inflections in transistor and memory that play to our strengths."

12:48PM SolarCity partners with BMW i to create exclusive solar service package for BMW i drivers (SCTY) 56.20 +2.28 : Co and BMW have partnered to offer owners of the new BMW i vehicles exclusive access to SolarCity's most affordable solar service option. The partnership will make it possible for many BMW i owners in SolarCity's territories to power their cars with clean electricity for less than it would cost with electricity provided by their utility company. As part of the partnership, BMW i owners will receive a 10-percent discount on SolarCity's home solar offer with flexible financing options, including options with no upfront installation cost and 20 years of locked-in solar energy rates. The discount will be available with the purchase of any BMW i vehicle at all participating BMW i Centers in SolarCity's 14-state service territory.

Large Cap Gainers

GIB (37.86 +5.25%): Beat on EPS by CAD0.05, missed on revs.
SNE (18.69 +4.18%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.
IVZ (34.06 +2.34%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman; Senior Managing Director sold 150,000 shares at $33.17-33.23 worth ~ $5.0 mln.

Large Cap Losers

CSCO (21.06 -12.27%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, missed on revs; gross margin below mid-pt of guidance; announced $15 bln stock repurchase program; sees Q2 revs below consensus, Q2 EPS below consensus; downgraded at Deutsche Bank; downgraded at Wedbush, tgt lowered to $22 from $26; tgt lowered to $22 from $24 at RBC; removed from Conviction Buy list at Goldman; upgraded to Buy from Hold at Standpoint Research; tgt $25.
KSS (53.77 -7.71%): Missed on EPS by $0.05, missed on revs; guided Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line; Q3 comps -1.6%; sees Q4 comp decline of 0-2%; co teams with Izod, Juicy Couture.
CTXS (55.3 -4.69%): Continued weakness after AMZN unveiled competitor product; defended at Stifel.

Mid Cap Gainers

SCTY (55.1 +2.19%): Co priced offering by its subsidiary, SolarCity LMC Series I, LLC, of $54,425,000 aggregate principal amount of Solar Asset Backed Notes, Series 2013-1; upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird; tgt raised to $71 from $50.
NTI (25.64 +5.25%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie.
KKR (23.35 +2.95%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; Co and Google (GOOG) are making an investment in six solar photovoltaic facilities that are currently being developed and will be managed by Recurrent Energy.

Mid Cap Losers

FNSR (21.47 -8.28%): Trading lower following CSCO results (CAVM also lower).
TRQ (4.13 -6.35%): Reported Q3 loss of $0.09 per share; announced preliminary prospectus for rights offering and an extension of interim funding and New Bridge Facilities.
ALGN (54.54 -6.58%): Danaher (DHR) disclosed the sale of 4.6 mln shares at $54.60.

Large Cap Gainers

GIB (37.86 +5.25%): Beat on EPS by CAD0.05, missed on revs.
SNE (18.69 +4.18%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.
IVZ (34.06 +2.34%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman; Senior Managing Director sold 150,000 shares at $33.17-33.23 worth ~ $5.0 mln.

Large Cap Losers

CSCO (21.06 -12.27%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, missed on revs; gross margin below mid-pt of guidance; announced $15 bln stock repurchase program; sees Q2 revs below consensus, Q2 EPS below consensus; downgraded at Deutsche Bank; downgraded at Wedbush, tgt lowered to $22 from $26; tgt lowered to $22 from $24 at RBC; removed from Conviction Buy list at Goldman; upgraded to Buy from Hold at Standpoint Research; tgt $25.
KSS (53.77 -7.71%): Missed on EPS by $0.05, missed on revs; guided Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line; Q3 comps -1.6%; sees Q4 comp decline of 0-2%; co teams with Izod, Juicy Couture.
CTXS (55.3 -4.69%): Continued weakness after AMZN unveiled competitor product; defended at Stifel.

Mid Cap Gainers

SCTY (55.1 +2.19%): Co priced offering by its subsidiary, SolarCity LMC Series I, LLC, of $54,425,000 aggregate principal amount of Solar Asset Backed Notes, Series 2013-1; upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird; tgt raised to $71 from $50.
NTI (25.64 +5.25%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie.
KKR (23.35 +2.95%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; Co and Google (GOOG) are making an investment in six solar photovoltaic facilities that are currently being developed and will be managed by Recurrent Energy.

Mid Cap Losers

FNSR (21.47 -8.28%): Trading lower following CSCO results (CAVM also lower).
TRQ (4.13 -6.35%): Reported Q3 loss of $0.09 per share; announced preliminary prospectus for rights offering and an extension of interim funding and New Bridge Facilities.
ALGN (54.54 -6.58%): Danaher (DHR) disclosed the sale of 4.6 mln shares at $54.60.

9:45AM Opening Market Summary: Stocks Mixed in Early Action (WRAPX) : As expected, the major averages began the session on a mixed note. The S&P 500 hovers just above its flat line while the Nasdaq (-0.2%) lags as Cisco Systems (CSCO 21.00, -3.00) weighs after issuing disappointing guidance.

With Cisco trading lower by 12.5%, the technology sector (-0.7%) is the only decliner. Meanwhile, the remaining nine groups hold gains between 0.1% and 0.5%. Defensive sectors have displayed early strength as consumer staples (+0.2%), health care (+0.3%), telecom services (+0.5%), and utilities (+0.5%) outperform.

Treasuries hold modest losses with the 10-yr yield up one basis point at 2.73%.

9:42AM Cisco Systems cuts it 2012-2013 rally in half at 20.72 and stabilizes -- session low 20.77 (CSCO) 20.95 -3.03

NVIDIA (NVDA) announced NVIDIA CUDA 6, the latest version of the world's most pervasive parallel computing platform and programming model.

Microsoft (MSFT) announced the opening of the Microsoft Cybercrime Center, a center of excellence for advancing the global fight against cybercrime.
EMC (EMC) announced general availability of EMC XtremIO, the industry's first and only all-flash array to provide consistent and predictable extreme performance to any application workload over any period of time, regardless of whether the array is idle or busy, empty or full.

Altera (ALTR) announced that NEC will use Altera's 28 nm FPGAs to bring new levels of performance to its Long-term Evolution base stations and enable wireless service providers to more effectively manage their networks.
SunEdison (SUNE) launched the SunEdison Solar Water Pump, a high performance solar PV-based water pump specially designed for agriculture.

AMD (AMD) announced the new AMD FirePro S10000 12GB Edition graphics card, designed for big data high-performance computing workloads for single precision and double precision performance.

EMCORE (EMKR) announced the introduction of the OTS-RSU 3 GHz RF Redundancy Switch Units for the Optiva platform.

7:34AM Brooks Automation beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (BRKS) 9.95 : Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.04; revenues fell 1.0% year/year to $118.2 mln vs the $115.72 mln consensus.

Q3 order bookings of $118.8 mln
Adjusted Gross Margins achieved 36.9%, a 240 basis points improvement on a sequential basis
Generated Operating Cash Flow of $24.8 mln
Life Sciences revenue increased 28% on a sequential basis to $11.3 mln

Guidance:
Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.04-0.07, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.07 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $119-124 mln vs. $125.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

7:05AM Microsemi announces James J. Peterson has been named chairman of the board in addition to his role as CEO (MSCC) 23.34 : Co announced James J. Peterson has been named chairman of the board in addition to his role as CEO. Dennis Leibel, who has served Microsemi as its chairman of the board since July 2004, will assume the role of lead independent director.

Co also announced Paul Pickle has been promoted to president and chief operating officer to facilitate the company's continuing growth plan. Ralph Brandi, who has served as COO since 2002, will continue with Microsemi as executive vice president with a focus on optimizing the company's manufacturing resources. The executive and board positions are all effective immediately.

1:55AM SolarCity prices Securization (SCTY) 53.92 : Co announces the pricing of the offering by its wholly-owned subsidiary, SolarCity LMC Series I, LLC, of $54,425,000 aggregate principal amount of Solar Asset Backed Notes, Series 2013-1

Investing
Tech Stocks

NetApp (NTAP) reported second quarter earnings of $0.66 per share, which is better than expected, while revenues rose 0.6% year/year to $1.55 billion which is below expectations.
The company issued third quarter guidance with EPS of $0.68-0.73, excluding non-recurring items, which is line with expectations with revenues of $1.575-1.675 billion which is below expectations.
Branded revenue up 5% year over year.
"NetApp is at the forefront of a changing IT landscape, creating opportunity from perceived threats...Though we face an ongoing uncertain macro environment, our solid branded revenue growth and share gains are evidence of the value customers place on our innovative, best-of-breed solutions."

Cisco Systems (CSCO) reported first quarter earnings of $0.53 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 1.8% year/year to $12.09 billion which is below expectations. Q1 Gross Margin reported at approximately 61.3%.
Cash flows from operations were $2.6 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2014, compared with $4.0 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013, and compared with $2.5 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2013.
The company announces $15 billion increase in stock repurchase program. "We are committed to our capital allocation strategy as we demonstrated today with the $15 billion increase in the authorization of our stock repurchase program...This quarter we delivered record non-GAAP profitability and continued our steady stream of innovation and market leadership...While our revenue growth was below our expectation, our financials are strong, our strategy is strong and our innovation engine is executing extremely well. We remain confident in our long-term goal to be the #1 IT company in the world and help our customers solve their biggest business problems."
On the conference call, cisco issued second quarter guidance with EPS of $0.45-0.47 and revs in the range of decline of 8-10% year/year, both of which are below expectations. The company also said it sees Non-GAAP EPS in the range of $1.95-2.05 which is below expectations.
Other notable comments from call: Switching business performed well; margins stable... cloud networking platform continues to perform well... committed to video business... global enterprise and commercial were solid growth engines; positive orders were offset by weak emerging market orders; total product orders declined 12% y/y... saw slower decision making in global markets... emerging market weakness was pronounced and accelerated toward the back end of the quarter.
Netease.com (NTES) reported third quarter earnings of $1.31 per share, which is worse than expected, while revenues rose 23.0% year/year to $410.8 million which is below expectations. In November 2012, the Company announced that its board of directors approved a new share repurchase program of up to US$100.0 million. As of September 30, 2013, the Company had cumulatively purchased approximately 2.02 million ADSs in open market purchases under this program for a total consideration of approximately US$83.0 million. The share repurchase program will expire on November 20, 2013.