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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Equity indices kicked off the abbreviated trading week on a relatively quiet note. Small caps finished in the lead (Russell 2000 +1.0%) while the S&P 500 added 0.1%.

The benchmark index saw a brief dip at the open, but the weakness was erased promptly thanks to the early strength of the health care sector (+0.9%). The group surged out of the gate after Actavis (ACT 201.47, +9.59) agreed to acquire Forest Laboratories (FRX 91.04, +19.65) for $25 billion. Biotechnology also factored into the sector's strength as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 264.24, +6.73) jumped 2.6%.

Outside of health care, gains in other sectors were much more subdued. Energy (+0.3%) was the second-best performer, aided by crude oil, which surged 2.2% to $102.52/bbl.

Similar to crude, precious metals enjoyed another strong session. Gold futures rose 0.4% to $1324.60/ozt while silver futures saw their ninth day of gains, spiking 2.2% to $21.91/ozt. This underpinned miners, sending the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 26.46, +0.11) higher by 0.4%.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, financials (+0.2%) outperformed while consumer discretionary (+0.1%) and technology (+0.1%) ended in-line. Also worth noting, the industrial sector (-0.2%) lagged due to the underperformance of transports.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (-1.0%) fell below its 50-day moving average (7277) as 16 of its 20 components registered losses. Most notably, Kansas City Southern (KSU 91.67, -4.29) lost 4.5% after JP Morgan downgraded the stock to 'Neutral' from 'Overweight.'

Countercyclical groups were mixed as health care and utilities (+0.3%) outperformed while consumer staples (-0.7%) and telecom services (-0.9%) lagged. Dow component Coca-Cola (KO 37.47, -1.46) pressured the staples sector after reporting in-line earnings on below-consensus revenue.

Even though equities ended higher, there was some demand for volatility protection, which pushed the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 13.87, +0.30) higher by 2.2%.

Treasuries ended near their best levels of the day with the 10-yr yield down four basis points at 2.71%.

Participation was a bit below average with only 709 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Among overseas news of note, the Bank of Japan made no changes to its interest rate or the purchase program; however, the bank did double its bank lending facility to JPY7 trillion. The yen weakened in reaction to the news, but erased about half of the decline during today's session. The dollar/yen pair traded near 102.35 at the New York close after notching an overnight high of 102.75.

Today's data was limited to three reports:

The February NAHB Housing Market Index fell to 46 from 56 while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to hold at 56.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for February registered a reading of 4.5, which was down from the prior month's unrevised reading of 12.5. Economists polled by Briefing.com expected the survey to decline to 7.5.
Lastly, the December net long-term TIC flows report indicated a $45.9 billion outflow of foreign capital from U.S. denominated assets. This followed the prior month's $28.0 billion outflow.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while January Housing Starts, Building Permits, and PPI will all be reported at 8:30 ET. Also of note, the latest minutes from the January FOMC meeting will cross the wires at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +2.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.1% YTD
S&P 500 -0.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.7% YTD

DJ30 -23.99 NASDAQ +28.76 SP500 +2.13 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1810/1.75 bln/811 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2028/708.6 mln/1003

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded higher as the dollar index traded in the red. Apr gold extended gains for a seventh consecutive session, trending higher after lifting from its session low of $1317.00 per ounce set at pit trade open. It eventually settled with a 0.4% gain at $1324.60 per ounce.
Mar silver came off its session low of $21.51 per ounce and settled 2.2% higher at $21.90 per ounce, just below its session high of $21.91 per ounce.
Mar crude also got a boost from the weaker dollar index. Prices lifted from a session low of $101.16 per barrel and touched a session high of $102.54 per barrel moments before settling at $102.52 per barrel, or 2.2% higher.
Mar natural gas traded in positive territory, climbing as high as $5.59 per MMBtu in late afternoon floor action. It settled at $5.54 per MMBtu, booking a solid 6.3% gain.

5:42PM Verizon announces number of common shares expected to be issued to Vodafone shareholders; expects to issue ~1.27 bln shares (VZ) 45.98 -0.53 : Co announced that it expects to issue 1,274,764,121 shares of Verizon common stock to shareholders of Vodafone Group Plc in connection with Verizon's acquisition of Vodafone's indirect 45 percent interest in Verizon Wireless. Verizon expects to close the transaction and issue the shares on Feb. 21, 2014, subject to customary closing conditions and approval from the High Court of Justice of England and Wales.

4:38PM Photronics reports EPS in-line, revs in-line (PLAB) 8.15 -0.24 : Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.04 per share (within revised guidance of $0.03-0.04), excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.04; revenues rose 1.7% year/year to $101.5 mln (meets revised guidance of $101.5 mln) vs the $102.2 mln consensus.

4:18PM Ultra Clean Holdings beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (UCTT) 11.94 +0.18 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.26 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.24; revenues rose 40.2% year/year to $126.3 mln vs the $125.1 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.28-0.31, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.22 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $135-140 mln vs. $122.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:17PM Broadcom and QLogic (QLGC) announce sale and purchase of certain ethernet controller-related assets and entry into ASIC Partnership for ~ $147 mln in cash (BRCM) 31.15 -0.15 :

Co and QLogic (QLGC) announced a definitive agreement under which QLogic will acquire certain 10/40/100Gb Ethernet controller-related assets and non-exclusive licenses to certain intellectual property relating primarily to Broadcom's programmable NetXtreme II Ethernet controller family. Total deal consideration is ~ $147 million in cash.
In connection with the transaction, Broadcom and QLogic will enter into a long-term supply agreement whereby Broadcom will become ASIC supplier to QLogic in support of the NetXtreme II product line.
Concurrent with the closing, it is expected QLogic will license certain Broadcom patents under a non-exclusive patent license agreement that will cover QLogic's Fibre Channel products in exchange for a license fee of $62 mln.
The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of Broadcom and QLogic and is subject to customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of calendar 2014.
Excluding potential one-time gains related to this asset sale, Broadcom expects the transaction to be slightly accretive to earnings per share in 2014.
QLogic expects this transaction to be immediately accretive to revenue and non-GAAP earnings per share.

4:08PM Analog Devices beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ADI) 51.23 +0.46 : Reports Q1 (Jan) adj. earnings of $0.49 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.48; revenues rose 1.0% year/year to $628.2 mln vs the $628.88 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.54-0.58 vs. $0.55 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $660-680 mln vs. $663.82 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

ADI also announced that its Board of Directors has approved a 9 percent increase in its regular quarterly dividend, from $0.34 to $0.37 per outstanding share of common stock. The dividend will be paid on March 11, 2014 to all shareholders of record at the close of business on February 28, 2014.

4:01PM Analog Devices increases quarterly cash dividend 9% to $0.37 per share from $0.34 per share and increases share buyback authorization to $1 bln (ADI) 51.23 +0.46 : As of February 1, 2014, the co had $443 million remaining under its previous authorization.

12:14PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

FRX (92.23 +29.19%): Actavis (ACT) to acquire FRX for ~$25 bln in an equity and cash transaction, valued at ~$89.48/share (based on Friday's close of FRX); upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; co to discontinue NAMENDA tablets, focus on once-daily NAMENDA XR.
ACT (204.92 +6.8%): Co to acquire FRX for ~$25 bln in an equity and cash transaction, valued at ~$89.48/share (based on Friday's close of FRX); ACT sees double digit accretion to adj. EPS in 2015 and 2016.
MYL (48.78 +5.81%): Trading higher following ACT purchase of FRX.

Large Cap Losers

GGB (6.38 -7.54%): Bloomberg discussed decline in Brazil stocks following growth forecasts cuts (VIV also lower).
KSU (90.49 -5.7%): Downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan.
WM (41.76 -4.37%): Missed on EPS by $0.04, missed on revs; guided FY14 EPS below consensus; increased div to $0.375 from $0.365/share prior; Board authorized the purchase of up to $600 mln of WM's common stock.

Mid Cap Gainers

MYGN (34.45 +9.57%): Co published Prolaris data in the Journal of Urology; data shows Prolaris predicts metastases in prostate cancer from biopsies.
HEI (58.27 +6.22%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at KeyBanc Capital Mkts; tgt $68.
DDD (77.84 +5.43%): Co printed first hybrid robotic exoskeleton; Digitimes discussed that 3D printing market may reach 6 mln units by 2018.

Mid Cap Losers

SMI (4.3 -19.02%): Missed on Q4 revs; sees Q1 rev down 5% to down 9% q/q to $440-460 mln vs $494.8 mln estimate.
DRC (54.08 -7.87%): Announced plans to suspend operations at its pig manure treatment facilities in Spain due to proposed Spanish regulation; downgraded to Reduce from Neutral at Natixis Bleichroeder; downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Johnson Rice.
WWW (26.39 -5.82%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, reported revs in-line; guided FY14 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus.

CalAmp (CAMP) has begun commercial shipments of its advanced location-and-messaging units to Modus for use in their usage-based insurance solutions offered by top insurers in the United States.

AT&T (T) and IBM (IBM) announced a new global alliance agreement to develop solutions that help support the "Internet of Things."

9:15AM 3D Systems prints first hybrid robotic exoskeleton (DDD) 73.83 : Co announces that it recently debuted the first ever 3D printed hybrid Exoskeleton robotic suit in collaboration with EksoBionics at a Singularity University-hosted event in Budapest. This enabled a paralyzed woman to walk

Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) announced CloudX, a reference architecture for building efficient cloud platforms.

Marvell (MRVL) announced the launch of the Galaxy Win Pro Smartphone for China Mobile (CHL) powered by Marvell's ARMADA Mobile PXA1088 Quad-Core Platform. Marvell's unified multi-core 3G mobile platform solution enables Samsung's (SSNLF) Galaxy Win Pro, to serve China Mobile's vast subscriber base with global WCDMA roaming capability.

8:17AM GT Advanced Tech. licenses PVD Technology from Kyma Technologies (GTAT) 11.67 : Co has acquired exclusive rights from Kyma Technologies for its plasma vapor deposition (PVD) process technology and know-how. The PVD of nano-columns technology developed by Kyma deposits a high-quality growth initiation layer of aluminum nitride (AlN) on wafers prior to gallium nitride (GaN) deposition. GT plans to commercialize a PVD tool that will complement its hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) system, which is currently in development. The combined offering will provide LED manufacturers with a higher throughput, lower cost solution to produce gallium nitride (GaN) templates on patterned or planar wafers. GT already has a high volume prototype tool incorporating Kyma's PVDNC technology and expects to offer a production-ready tool in the first half of 2015.

LitePoint, a subsidiary of Teradyne (TER), announced that TCL Communications has achieved breakthrough production volumes using LitePoint technology to test and verify TCL's new lines of innovative smartphones.

GlobalSCAPE (GSB) announced that their latest release of Mail Express, version 4, includes security enhancements to protect sensitive customer and corporate information. -Xilinx (XLNX) announced its 1.6Gbps low power, low cost, small cell backhaul modem IP for millimeter wave applications

Kulicke and Soffa Industries (KLIC) announced the appointment of Peter T. Kong to its Board of Directors.

7:08AM SunEdison announces confidential submission of draft registration statement by Yieldco Vehicle (SUNE) 14.22 : Co announced that it confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to the proposed initial public offering of the common stock of a yieldco vehicle. The number of shares of common stock to be sold and the price range for the proposed offering has not yet been determined. The initial public offering is expected to commence after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions.

JA Solar (JASO) announced that its multi-crystalline silicon solar cells have surpassed 19% conversion efficiency.

Microchip Technology (MCHP) announced its next-generation family of energy-measurement Analog Front Ends with industry-leading accuracy.