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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The stock market rallied steadily throughout the Tuesday session with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.2%) providing the lead. Thanks to the advance, the Dow narrowed its 2014 loss to 3.5% while the Nasdaq (+1.0%) was able to swing from a loss to a year-to-date gain of 0.4%. The S&P 500 (+1.1%) regained its 50-day moving average with all ten sectors contributing to the climb.

Heading into the session, many participants were anxious to hear Janet Yellen's first testimony as the new Fed Chair, but the lengthy appearance before the House Financial Services Committee was largely uneventful.

Like her predecessor, Ms. Yellen indicated the Fed plans to remain data dependent in its decision making and that measured tapering will continue unless economic data takes a turn for the worse. When asked about the impact of the disappointing jobs reports for December and January on the Fed's reaction function, Ms. Yellen said it would be premature to alter policy based on a limited sample size.

In other news from Washington, all signs pointed to the House of Representatives being ready to pass an unconditional bill to raise the debt ceiling, which likely contributed to the market's sunny disposition.

All ten sectors took part in today's advance with energy (+1.4%) and materials (+1.2%) ending in the lead. The energy sector drew strength from top components like Chevron (CVX 113.58, +1.89) while crude oil ended little changed at $99.95 per barrel.

Elsewhere, the materials space received significant support from miners. Royal Gold (RGLD 65.20, +2.66) and Randgold Resources (GOLD 77.08, +2.55) posted respective gains of 4.3% and 3.4% while the broader Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 25.65, +0.95) jumped 3.9% and regained its 200-day moving average. On a related note, gold futures rose 1.2% to $1289.70 per troy ounce.

With regard to other growth-sensitive sectors, technology (+1.2%) and industrials (+1.1%) outperformed while consumer discretionary (+0.7%) and financials (+1.0%) lagged.

On the countercyclical side, health care and telecom services both gained 1.3% while consumer staples and utilities added 1.1% and 0.9%, respectively.

Treasuries ended on their lows with the 10-yr yield up four basis points at 2.72%.

Despite the broad rally, trading volume was below average as less than 700 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data was limited to December wholesale inventories, which increased 0.3% after increasing 0.5% in November. The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.6%. The BEA assumed merchant wholesaler inventories rose 0.6% in December when calculating the advance fourth quarter GDP report. The lower-than-expected increase in wholesale inventories will result in a negative revision to fourth quarter GDP growth.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET while the January Treasury budget will be released at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +0.4% YTD
S&P 500 -1.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.5% YTD

DJ30 +192.98 NASDAQ +42.87 SP500 +19.91 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1810/1.88 bln/788 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2395/696.7 mln/673

3:35 pm :

Apr gold extended gains for a third consecutive session on Janet Yellen's first testimony as the new Fed Chair. Ms. Yellen indicated that measured tapering will continue unless economic data takes a turn for the worse. The yellow metal lifted from its session low of $1275.90 per ounce set moments after floor trade opened and advanced as high as $1294.40 per ounce by late morning action. It eventually settled with a 1.2% gain at $1289.70 per ounce.
Mar silver slipped to a session low of $19.92 per ounce but recovered into positive territory in mid-morning action. It brushed a session high of $20.29 per ounce and settled at $20.15 per ounce, or 0.1% higher.
Mar crude oil fell for the first time in six sessions, with prices slipping to a session low of $99.60 per barrel in morning action. The energy component spent the remainder of the session chopping around near the unchanged level and eventually settled at $99.95 per barrel, or 0.1% lower.
Mar natural gas lifted from a session low of $4.65 per MMBtu set moments after floor trade opened and trended higher to a session high of $4.85 per MMBtu. It settled 5.0% higher at $4.81 per MMBtu, booking its first gain in five sessions.

4:13PM Diodes beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 revs in-line (DIOD) 23.33 +0.60 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.22; revenues rose 29.2% year/year to $211 mln vs the $212.33 mln consensus.

Gross profit margin was 28.8 percent, compared to 31.0 percent in the third quarter of 2013 and 26.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012;
Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $205-213 mln, or plus 1 percent to minus 3 percent sequentially, vs. $208.98 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"We expect gross margin to be flat with fourth quarter at 28.8 percent, plus or minus 2 percent. Operating expenses are expected to be flat with the fourth quarter, excluding impairment of goodwill, at approximately 22.5 percent of revenue, plus or minus 1 percent. We expect our income tax rate to range between 19 and 25 percent, and shares used to calculate EPS for the first quarter are anticipated to be approximately 48.2 million."
"Looking forward, we remain focused on achieving our goal of $1 billion in annual revenue with model profitability, and the BCD acquisition has brought us one step closer toward achieving this goal."

CalAmp (CAMP) announced its newest enterprise data product, the CDM-5030, a high-speed broadband router and gateway messaging unit that provides reliable and secure 3G and 4G network connectivity for 24/7 always-on operation of remote-fixed and mobile machine-to-machine deployments.

SCI Technology, a division of Sanmina (SANM), has received multiple production awards for the TOCNET InterCommunications System. These recent awards total more than 2200 fully equipped ICS kits for a variety of U.S. military tactical wheeled vehicles.

8:05AM Xilinx announced that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.29 per outstanding share of common stock, an increase from the current dividend of $0.25 per share (XLNX) 46.48 :

7:31AM ARC Group announces 3D Systems (DDD) printer purchases (ARCW) 23.82 : Co announced that its division, 3D Material Technologies, recently purchased 3D Systems (DDD) ProX direct metal sinterin printers from EMS, a 3D Systems reseller based in Tampa, FL.
With a build size of 250 x 250 x 300mm (9.8 x 9.8 x 11.8 inches), the new machines have the capability of making a wide variety of parts out of stainless steel, cobalt chrome, titanium, aluminum, and ceramics.

Rudolph Technologies (RTEC) announced the sale of its first NSX 320 TSV Metrology System to CEA-Leti, a research organization based in Grenoble, France.

F5 Networks (FFIV) has completed extensive interoperability testing with Internet Protocol Version 6. Testing was undertaken by IPv6Ready.org and by the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory to verify that F5's BIG-IP 10000 series application delivery controller appliances are compatible with IPv6.

Xilinx (XLNX) and Xylon announced the logiADAK Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC Automotive Driver Assistance Kit, jointly developed by Xilinx, Xylon and ecosystem partners Embedded Vision Systems and Digital Design.

ANSYS (ANSS) users can now leverage NVIDIA (NVDA) graphics processing units to speed up fluid dynamics simulation and quickly handle large, complex simulation models.

ARM (ARMH) announced an enhanced suite of higher performance and more energy-efficient products specifically designed for the rapidly growing mid-range mobile and consumer electronics markets. The suite, comprised of processor, graphics processor and physical IP, is an update to ARM's mid-range IP offering targeting devices for production in 2015 and beyond.

JA Solar Holdings Co (JASO) announced that the performance of the Company's solar modules in extreme environments has been certified by the China Quality Certification Center, China's largest professional certification body. JA Solar is the first solar product manufacturer to receive this CQC accreditation.

2:09AM Mattson prices 12,245,000 shares of common stock at $2.45 per share (MTSN) 2.61 :

Rackspace (RAX) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.14 per share, which is in line with estimates, while revenues rose 15.9% year/year to $408 million which is slightly higher than expected. Total server count increased to 103,886, up from 101,967 servers at the end of the previous quarter. Net income was $21 million for the quarter, up 27.5% from the previous quarter and down 30% from the fourth quarter of 2012. Net income margin for the quarter was 5.1% compared to 4.2% for the previous quarter and 8.5% in the fourth quarter of 2012. The company sees Q1 2-3.5% (Approximately $416-422 million) which is line with estimates. The company sees revenue growth of 15-18% (approximately $1.764-1.810 billion which is line with estimates. The company also announced that Lanham Napier retired from the company as Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors. Graham Weston, Rackspace's co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Napier plans to invest in and advise other entrepreneurial companies following a decision to step away from public company executive leadership. He will remain a consultant to Rackspace for the next several months to ensure a smooth transition.

Nuance Communications (NUAN) reported first quarter earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 0.5% year/year to $490 million which is line with estimates. The company on Jan 21 raised Q1 guidance to non-GAAP EPS of $0.23 on non-GAAP rev of $487-491 million (from $0.18-0.21, $477-487 million). Nuance reported bookings of $637.3 million, up 26.2% from $504.9 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2013. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with EPS of i$0.21-0.25 which is line with estimates, with revenues of $476-490 million which is below expectations. The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2014 with raised EPS to $1.07-1.17 which is in line with estimates and reaffirm fiscal year 2014 revenues of $2.03-2.09 billion which is line with estimates. "we expect FY 14 bookings to benefit from further growth in our automotive and smartphone businesses, strength in our diagnostics and Dragon medical product lines, expansion of our HIM business and improvements in the performance of our enterprise licensing and imaging MFP product lines. These factors give us additional confidence in FY 14 bookings forecast of $2.15 billion to $2.25 billion."

ComScore (SCOR) and Google (GOOG) are partnering to offer a real-time audience metric designed to help brand marketers easily measure campaigns across screens. After a period of testing, comScore vCE will be available to DoubleClick marketer and publisher clients, built into the widely used ad management platform. This partnership will be announced today by Neal Mohan, Google's VP of Display Advertising, during his keynote presentation at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting at 2:30 PM PT in Palm Desert, California.